The Ventura Family Practice Residency has been training family physicians since 1969 and has nearly 400 graduates spread across the world. Every year we bring in a new class of 13 residents who come from all different walks of life. We have tremendous diversity in our residency body evidenced by the variety of geographic locations people come from, by the different paths our residents have taken to medicine, and the variety of long term career goals. An osteopathic medicine therapy clinic has also recently started spearheaded by our D.O. residents and faculty.
Our Minority Recruitment and Retention Committee is a very active, open group dedicated to promoting diversity and cultural competence among medical professionals. We participate in health fairs, high school career days and many other community activities. We recognize that part of our responsibility as physicians is to help pave the way for others of all colors, ethnicity and cultures to become educated as the doctors of tomorrow.
Our committee is open to any resident with a desire to promote diversity and cultural competency in medicine. We support communities that are traditionally underrepresented in medicine (i.e. African-American, Native-American, Latin-American, etc.) and believe in community empowerment as a way to improve the lives of our patients. We strive to work in the community in a variety of ways: health fairs at the local farmer’s market, youth mentoring, and ongoing recruitment efforts. We need you to help keep the enthusiasm alive and to bring your ideas for new projects!
Residents
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Ventura Family Medicine Residency, Office of Medical Education, 3291 Loma Vista Rd. Ventura, CA 93003 - Phone (805) 652-6228
Questions, Comments, Suggestions, please contact Bryan Wong, MD Webmaster: bryan.wong@ventura.org
Chris Gruber, MD
Class of 2008
I am originally from Germany but have been in the United States since 1993. I have been very active internationally in Central America, the Caribbean, Africa and of course Europe. I was attracted to Ventura because of its hands-on full spectrum approach. I wanted to learn procedures and care for patients with complicated and advanced disease. This would be very helpful in the care of the underserved in foreign places. However, I am also interested in inner city primary care. In my opinion, inhabitants of the inner city have access problems to health care just as much as people living in remote areas. Even though higher level care may be in these areas, access is still limited to many of its inhabitants. It is my belief that the education I receive here will be as useful to my patients in the inner city as to those in foreign or secluded places.
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Community Involvement
Some Family Medicine residents from VCMC have partnered up with MICOP - Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, an Oxnard based nonprofit organization who works on empowering the local indigenous farm
worker community. The indigenous farm worker community plays a critical role in Ventura County's agricultural economy, yet make up the county's most impoverished residents. Compounding their challenges is the fact that many are Mexican immigrants from Oaxaca that speak neither Spanish nor English. Instead, they speak their native language, Mixteco, which currently has no written form. As a result, they are subject to discrimination in housing, labor, and in the marketplace. The Mixtecans number over 20,000 and make up a
part of our patient population at the hospital and satellite clinics such as Las Islas Clinic.
Included are some photos of the residents pairing up with (MICOP) at a "Back to School" readiness fair. Here over 150 backpacks along with school supplies were donated to school aged children. Donations were received from many caring staff members and doctors at VCMC.
New Opportunity for D.O. residents!
The Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM) clinic was established in 2007. Run by our osteopathic residents, the clinic has been a valuable resource for patients suffering from musculoskeletal pain and many other ailments. The clinic has provided an opportunity for our D.O. residents to further their manual treatment skills they learned in osteopathic medical school. To learn more about this clinic and meet the D.O. residents, pleae click here.
