Department of Family and Community Medicine

Caring for our community one neighborhood at a time

Our mission is to promote health and equity among patients, learners and communities through excellence in clinical care, education, research and service.

Joseph Garry MD, FAAFP, FACSM
Head

Welcome to the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford. Our department is mission-focused and builds upon the courage and vision of one of the founders of our specialty and our original department chair – Dr. L.P. Johnson. Since 1971, the department has engaged in medical education, residency & fellowship training, rural education, and healthcare research. Ours is a growing and vibrant department.

The department is active in a range of clinical and educational activities; from Rockford, Illinois, throughout our rural communities, to the surrounding states, and across the globe to Vellore, India. We focus on full-spectrum care in Family Medicine. We support and collaborate with the campus’ National Center for Rural Health Professions and embrace the focus of striving to meet the health care needs of rural and underserved residents and their communities. Moreover, training in rural settings for both our medical students and residents has demonstrated improved knowledge and skills in family medicine; traits that are highly leveraged in our current medical environment.

We also innovate. Our new STRETCH-OB program provides advanced training in at-risk and surgical obstetrics to a select group of our family medicine residents who are committed to providing obstetrics in a rural or underserved community. The department supports its own research division – Health Research and Evaluation (HRE) – which provides a vibrant research program that continues to propel us forward in an evidence-based fashion.

Our department is committed to our community and the health of our region. This puts us on the frontier of many aspects of both patient-centered and population-based health care. This is exactly where we want to be! Join us in our mission. Join us in expanding Family Medicine and creating a better society and improved health for all!

Undergraduate Medical Education

University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford medical students, including those in the Rural Medical Education (RMED) Program, gain hands-on clinical experience in family medicine through rotations within university-operated facilities as well as through our network of community faculty throughout the Rockford region, the state of Illinois and even globally.

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Residencies and Fellowship

The University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford Family Medicine Residency Program provides our residents the benefit of unopposed, community-based clinical experiences and exceptional opportunities for obstetrical care and innovative educational programming through multidisciplinary techniques. Through collaboration with the award-winning UW Health SwedishAmerican Hospital, the UI Health Mile Square Health Center – L.P. Johnson Rockford, and other affiliated community health care partners, the UICOMR Family Medicine Residency is a 7-7-7 program that provides outstanding graduate medical education.

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Advanced & Surgical Obstetrics Track

Structured Training for Rural Enhancement of Community Health in Obstetrics (STRETCH-OB) is a HRSA-funded track within our UICOMR Family Medicine Residency Program that prepares select family medicine residents to practice full-spectrum FM-OB in rural and underserved communities.

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For Faculty and Staff

Clinical Services →

Our faculty, residents and fellows provide patient care at UI Health Mile Square Health Center – L.P. Johnson Rockford, UW Health SwedishAmerican, and the Winnebago County Jail and Juvenile Detention Center.

Research

Health Research and Evaluation (HRE) is a division of UICOMR’s Department of Family and Community Medicine providing the foundation for research activities conducted by faculty, clinicians and students.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

UICOMR’s Department of Family and Community Medicine’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee was created in 2020 as a direct response to racial unrest and injustice. Understanding that, despite our intentional diversity within our department, we needed to embark on leadership in anti-racism within our community, our department, our college and healthcare overall. The mission of our DEI Committee is to create an inclusive environment supporting a diverse workforce and a clinical and training environment that facilitates the provision of high-value care to diverse populations. Our committee is comprised of faculty members, residents, medical students and patients. Our committee members serve on our search committees and participate in resident recruitment. In addition to the unconscious bias training our medical students participate in, our residents and faculty participate in ongoing professional development challenging our current societal and healthcare views of race, gender, and equity in medicine.

The UICOMR Department of Family and Community Medicine acknowledges Indigenous People as the traditional stewards of the land, and the enduring relationship that exists between them and their traditional territories. We honor the land of the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo) tribe. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced occupation of their territory, we honor and respect the many diverse indigenous people connected to this land for which we gather, educate, and learn and we recognize our responsibilities to the peoples of this land. We strive to address the history of this land so that it guides our work in the present and future.