Message from the Program Director

If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I am passionate about ensuring that you receive the most up-to-date training. My goal is to equip you with the tools you need to create healthier communities, prevent premature deaths and transform health care systems.

I am incredibly proud of the preventive medicine program I oversee. With the support of a $2.8 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, my University at Buffalo colleagues and I have designed this program to offer valuable academic and practicum phases of training in a two-year experience.

Our program includes graduate course work leading to a Master of Public Health degree — all with intensive rotations and electives in diverse training environments.

If you join our program, you will experience both personal and professional growth as you work with experienced mentors, undertake rotations in rural and urban underserved areas, gain opportunities for post-residency placement in rural and underserved areas, help improve maternal health outcomes, and earn your accelerated MPH degree.

Our program is an added leadership credential for primary care resident graduates. We recruit board eligible or board certified primary care graduates (after completion of three years of residency) in general internal medicine, family medicine, general pediatrics or medicine-pediatrics.

Why is our program good for your career? Physicians completing this residency become board certified in general preventive medicine, making them highly qualified for leadership roles to address health system needs in the Western New York region and beyond.

You will increase your knowledge about health disparities when you train in our program. Whether it’s through our didactics, rotations and electives, or at training sites like Universal Primary Care and the Lighthouse Free Medical Clinic, you will gain firsthand knowledge of the health challenges faced by underserved populations.

For instance, during our maternal health rotation at Jericho Road, you will be exposed to the Priscilla Project, which works to achieve healthy birth outcomes by empowering socially isolated, at-risk women — who are often refugees — as they go through the process of pregnancy, labor and delivery. 

Upon completion of our program, you can work within organizations such as primary care medical groups, health care systems, managed care organizations, university academic primary care departments or divisions.

We expect our residents to gain opportunities to serve in roles such as medical director, clinical manager of population health quality improvement, and medical manager of system transformation initiatives.

These leadership roles can give you unique career advantages such as: fulfillment from high impact roles in health care; high quality of life balance (a more flexible schedule); a more family friendly career; and the ability to translate evidence into practice  — and eventually set policies for better outcomes.

The demand for preventive medicine physicians is growing. Will you take the opportunity to train in a program that boasts accomplished faculty, a wide range of training sites, comprehensive rotations, informative didactics and flexible electives?

I invite you to fully explore our program and see the benefits we have to offer.

All my best,
Smita Bakhai, MD, MPH, FACP