Kaweah Delta Health Care District has received accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for its fifth Graduate Medical Education (GME) Programs.
The surgical medical residency program at Kaweah Delta was awarded initial accreditation from the ACGME and became the 22nd surgery residency program in California. The accreditation will allow the program, affiliated with UC Irvine, to begin recruiting physicians who have recently completed medical school and have received doctoral degrees in medicine. The program will enroll two residents for the first five years, starting in July 2015. Kaweah Delta participated in a site visit earlier this year for accreditation.
“It’s great news, there’s no other way to describe it,” said Dr. Sebastiano Cassaro, program director of the surgery residency program. “We had already begun receiving inquiries into this program when it formally did not exist. We expect this surgery residency program to be highly competitive and interview 100 applicants for every spot.”
To select its first class of two physicians, Kaweah Delta will participate in The National Resident Matching Program. The matching program will provide Kaweah Delta with up to 200 applications from interested medical students and recent medical school graduates to begin interviews this year.
Kaweah Delta has residency training programs in the areas of Family Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, Transitional Year and General Surgery. The five residency programs are bringing physicians who have recently graduated medical school to
Tulare County to complete training in their respective specialties. It is estimated that between 40-50% of the physicians who train in Tulare County through the residency programs will remain and practice in the Visalia area.
Established in 1963, Kaweah Delta Health Care District is the only facility with Magnet status in the San Joaquin Valley serving children and adults and is the only trauma center between Fresno and Bakersfield. The district offers a comprehensive scope of services including everything from a well-respected pediatric hospitalist program to nationally recognized orthopedic and cancer programs.
For more information, visit www.kaweahdelta.org.