Residency Program Graduates Nine Family Physicians

They spent half their residency working through an unprecedented pandemic that at times saw them losing multiple patients a day to COVID-19. Yet the physicians who graduated recently from Greater Lawrence Family Health Center’s (GLFHC) Lawrence Family Medicine Residency program remain dedicated to their calling.

All nine members of the Class of 2022 are remaining in family medicine/primary care, mostly at health centers up and down the East Coast. Two are remaining with GLFHC.

“One of the things that I was struck by when I was looking at who’s graduating and where you are going is how many of you are remaining in primary care,” said Guy L. Fish, MD, President & CEO of GLFHC. “You all chose to be in primary care and that’s really remarkable and special and you should be recognized for that.”

Fish’s remarks came during the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency (LFMR) graduation, which was live-streamed on GLFHC’s YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sUtJHRjvI2I.

The Lawrence Family Medicine Residency (LFMR) program is the first in the country to be hosted by a federally-qualified community health center. Started in 1994, the residency is accredited through GLFHC and affiliated with Lawrence General Hospital. While most family medicine residency programs are three years in length, LFMR is a four-year training program that is part of a national pilot looking at training innovation. In 2021 the program was awarded a grant to expand its program to 48 doctors, up from its previous capacity of 40.

Congratulations to the LFMR Class of 2022:

Zoe Becker, MD: Family physician at Methuen Family Health Center in Methuen, MA
Lance Braye, MD: Family physician at Lovelace Family Medicine in Prosperity, SC
Kathryn De La Rosa, MD: Attending physician at the Institute for Family Health-Mt. Hope Practice in Bronx, NY
Zoe Gordon, MD: Attending physician at Lynn Community Health Center in Lynn, MA
Helen Jin, MD: Family physician at Apicha Community Health Center in New York, NY
Rebecca Joseph, MD: Family physician at Haverhill Family Health Center in Haverhill, MA
Alice Kaufman, MD: Primary Care physician at Brattleboro Family Medicine in Brattleboro, VT
Cara Smith, MD: Primary Healthcare and Health Equity Policy Fellowship at Duke Family Health Center in Durham, NC
Ryan Walker, MD: Primary Care physician at Lynn Community Health Center in Lynn, MA

About GLFHC: The mission of Greater Lawrence Family Health Center is to improve and maintain the health of individuals and families in the Merrimack Valley by providing a network of high quality, comprehensive health care services and by training health care professionals to respond to the needs of a culturally diverse population. More than 62,000 patients depend on GLFHC for their primary health care needs at locations in Lawrence, Haverhill and Methuen. For more information, visit https://glfhc.org.