VCU-CMH Family Medicine Residency in South Hill launches in July 2023

Sandra Balmoria, M’12, H’15 (left), and Lori Landes, MD-PHD’13, are expanding their alma mater’s ability to train physicians through the VCU-Community Memorial Hospital Family Medicine Residency launching in 2023. Located in South Hill, Virginia, near the North Carolina border, the program will build a pipeline of physicians in an area that has struggled to recruit family medicine and primary care physicians.

By Kim Catley

Lori Landes, MD-PHD’13 (HGEN), believes firsthand experiences are crucial to introducing medical students and residents to the nuances and challenges of practicing medicine in remote areas — and to ensuring long-term access to care to those populations. As associate program director for the developing VCU-Community Memorial Hospital Family Medicine Residency, she wants to create partnerships with communities that increase access to care, improve outcomes and decrease health disparities.

Landes first turned her attention to medical education after completing her residency at the University of Arizona, where she focused on underserved patients and rural medicine. Her placements spanned the state, ranging from urban academic centers to small, remote areas to the Indian Health Service.

By the end of her residency, she realized she could implement what she learned in her own practice, or have a broader impact by training the next generation of physicians in the same model. She joined the teaching health center movement, which focuses on placing residents directly in communities.

“If we want to address the health care needs of the nation, our residents need to be out in the communities,” she says. “By basing their education in the community, we will focus on primary care and all of the wraparound services that can change somebody’s life.”

Landes is preparing to launch a new family medicine residency in South Hill, Virginia, near the North Carolina border, in July 2023. She says the program will train residents in rural medicine and build a pipeline of physicians in an area that has struggled to recruit family medicine and primary care physicians.

This workforce development begins with the program’s faculty. Landes says many programs that incentivize rural medicine — such as loan repayment programs — are often short-term and can lead to high physician turnover. Building a residency program, though, means that high-caliber physicians come to the area to teach, drawing a regular cohort of residents, and together they provide stability and continuity of care for years to come.

Sandra Balmoria, M’12, H’15, recently left her practice on the Eastern Shore and will soon join the South Hill residency faculty. She grew up in a small farming community in Ohio and wanted to return to her rural roots after finishing her residency in Fairfax, Virginia. As a preceptor on the shore, Balmoria says she had a “great panel of patients with incredibly interesting medical experiences” from whom her students could learn.

“What is it like living with HIV in a really rural community? Or what is it like having multiple sclerosis or some other condition that requires a lot of specialty care? Or what is it like having a child with a serious medical condition and being over 100 miles from a children’s hospital?”

Balmoria also sees the new residency program as an opportunity to introduce physicians to the benefits of small-town life. She’s particularly excited about South Hill’s active 4H clubs, restaurants, 24-hour gyms, daycares, and schools, and an enthusiastic community that’s excited about the program’s arrival.

“It has the things a recent medical school graduate would need to feel at home,” she says. “Everyone has been so glad to have us here, and they want to help. That was exactly what I needed to hear to know that residents will want to come here, and they’ll be happy.”

April was a busy month as we continued to deliver millions in Community Project Funding checks throughout Virginia’s Fourth Congressional District.

Last month, I presented two funding checks, one for $3,200,000 to Surry County and another for $2,432,000 to Petersburg, for water/ sewer service infrastructure upgrades.

I also presented two checks to VCU totaling over $1.3 million. One check for $996,000 went towards VCU’s RVA Gun Violence Prevention Framework, an evidence-based public health response to curb gun violence in Richmond. The other check was for $400,000 to support VCU’s RTR Teacher Residency Early Childhood Pathway, a program to help recruit, train, and retain high quality, early childhood educators throughout Central Virginia. 

That same day, I traveled to Hopewell to deliver another check for $750,000 for their Cattail Creek Crossing Project. This project will improve the strength and resiliency of the city’s storm drainage infrastructure and protect the integrity of nearby infrastructure systems and homes in the area.

Finally, at the end of April, I traveled to Henrico to deliver a $1,500,000 check to An Achievable Dream for the support of its program at Highland Springs Elementary School and expansion to middle school.

I was incredibly excited to advocate for this funding and deliver checks to these deserving localities. Serving constituents is a critical part of my job and I am excited to see these improvements made to the VA-04 community.

My constituent service team has also been working hard this year, and I am pleased to announce that they have already closed over 300 cases in 2022! If you are experiencing an issue such as a lost passport, missing benefits, late tax return, or other issues with a federal agency, we are here to help. To receive assistance, you can go to my website, fill out the necessary form, and a member of my staff will be in touch.

As we resume in person activities and events, you can also invite myself or a staff member to participate by visiting https://mceachin.house.gov/contact/request-appearance and we’ll make every effort to accommodate you. Serving you is the most important part of my job!