WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WJHG\/WECP) – The FSU Family Medicine Residency Program now has more than a dozen doctors completing their final training in Walton County.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe finally have a full complement of residents,\u201d said Dr. Joshua Hodge, the family medicine residency program director. \u201cWe are now training 18 residents; it\u2019s a three-year training, so six residents per class.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaders say Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast launched the program to help tackle the Panhandle\u2019s primary care shortage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is to keep the majority of them in the general area, in the Panhandle of Florida,\u201d Hodge said.<\/p>\n
The residents are not just learning inside the hospital and at the family medicine residency clinic. They are working with community partners across Walton County to help meet the demand for care.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have searched for any and all opportunities to not just maintain this clinic down here in the south,\u201d said Hodge, \u201cbut spread into the north part of the county where it is the most underserved.\u201d<\/p>\n
A big part of that demand is patients who do not have coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost 70 percent of our patients have no insurance of any type,\u201d Hodge said.<\/p>\n
More residents also means more patients \u2014 and more space needed at the family medicine residency clinic.<\/p>\n
The facility is expanding. Three new exam rooms and one new integrated medicine room will bring the total number of patient rooms to 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe moved people out of shared and private offices,\u201d said Hodge. \u201cWe\u2019ve converted those to exam rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n
With more physicians and more room for patients, program leaders say they can now take 900 appointments a month, with that number expected to grow.<\/p>\n
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