Message from the site director

Thank you for your interest in becoming a family medicine resident physician, and a part of our family at International Community Health Services (ICHS). ICHS and the Swedish Family Medicine Residency at Cherry Hill share the same goal: to train and inspire the next generation of family physicians to provide evidence-based, quality health care to underserved, economically disadvantaged, culturally diverse, and disenfranchised communities. Each year, we accept two residents for our site for a 2-2-2 residency.

The ICHS Family Medicine Site is in the heart of downtown Seattle’s historic Chinatown-International District (CID) and Little Saigon. In 1973, a small group of community members, physicians, and medical students created a free health clinic in a borrowed space in Beacon Hill for low-income Chinese and Filipino elders living in Seattle’s CID. Its mission: to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate health services to improve the health of Asian Pacific Islanders and the broader community. Today, ICHS is a Federally Qualified Health Center, is recognized as a premier health care organization, and is the largest provider of health care to Asian Pacific Islanders in Washington state. Our mission has not changed, and our reach has grown from a storefront clinic in the CID to 11 clinics and sites throughout the Seattle metropolitan area, serving nearly 28,000 patients in 70 languages.

The family medicine residency is located at our founding clinic in the CID, one of Seattle’s oldest, most diverse, and most vibrant neighborhoods. At our clinics, you will see a diverse panel of patients: 85% are persons of color, 84% are low income, 65% are on Medicare and/or Medicaid, 60% have limited English and need interpretation services, and 3% are homeless. Your patients will be your greatest teachers. The high-volume obstetrics at ICHS provides you the opportunity to care for continuity OB patients and their newborns. And your care for these families will often expand to include other family members, spanning multiple generations. As part of your OB training, you will be trained using our in-house ultrasound.

You will also see a great deal of medical complexity in our adult and geriatric patients. Twenty percent of our patients are over the age of 65. Patients at ICHS Legacy House, an assisted living facility located next door, have primary care providers at our clinic. You will have several opportunities to learn and practice outpatient procedures including joint injections, skin biopsy and excisions, LARCs placement and removal, circumcision, I&D, toenail removals, using ultrasound to screen for abdominal aortic aneurysms, among many others. You will do all your inpatient training through Swedish and Seattle Children’s Hospital and be exposed to many outpatient specialties during your time here. Additionally, we have some in-house specialists at ICHS including infectious disease, podiatry, neurology, and pulmonology.

At ICHS, you and your patients will be part of a multidisciplinary team that may include interpretation, pharmacy, dentistry, nutrition, psychology, social work, vision, health education, community advocacy, acupuncture, and Chinese traditional medicine. In addition, you will collaborate with other learners in our organization, including ARNP residents, pharmacy students, dental residents, psychology and social work interns, and medical students. At ICHS, collaboration and teamwork are essential elements of providing quality care for our patients.

I look forward to talking more with you. Feel free to reach out to me.

Yours truly,

Hieu Pham, MD, MSPH, AAHIVS
Director, ICHS Family Medicine Residency
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