Welcome from the Division Chief
Welcome to the General Medicine Division at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Whether you are a patient of ours, a physician considering where to build your career, a resident or student deciding where to train, a colleague looking for a partner in care, or someone considering an investment in this work, I hope you find something here that reflects why I was drawn to the University of Rochester.
General medicine at Rochester has a distinguished history. The Division traces its roots to the early 1970s under Dr. Paul Griner, who helped found what became the Society of General Internal Medicine and established one of the country’s early fellowships in general internal medicine. In the decades since, our faculty have shaped how the field thinks about diagnostic reasoning, ambulatory education, and the organization of primary care — and have gone on to leadership roles across this institution. That legacy is not a museum piece. It is the standard we hold ourselves to.
The heart of our clinical work is Strong Internal Medicine (SIM), our faculty-resident practice caring for approximately 12,000 patients each year. SIM holds the highest level of Patient Centered Medical Home recognition from the NCQA and accepts all insurance. Our patients bring complex medical and social needs, and we have built a team designed to meet them: physicians, nurse practitioners, behavioral health clinicians, clinical pharmacist, dietitian, social workers, care managers, and an attorney through our medical-legal partnership. Programs in addiction recovery, tobacco cessation, and home-based care for the homebound began here as ideas about how care ought to work, and were then tested and shared.
Education is inseparable from that work. Our faculty — every one of whom has earned a departmental teaching award — lead the ambulatory training of Internal Medicine residents, direct core curricula in evidence-based medicine, quality improvement, and the social determinants of health, and helped design the block model that reshaped resident continuity clinic. We also host psychology postdoctoral fellows, PGY1 pharmacy residents, and advanced practice provider students, because the care we aspire to requires teams that train together.
Our scholarship follows from what we see in practice. We study our own innovations in care delivery and education, evaluate them honestly, and disseminate what we learn so that others can benefit.
My priorities are straightforward: strengthen and grow our faculty, deepen our research and scholarly infrastructure, ensure our patients experience outstanding care that is timely and coordinated, and sustain a Division where people want to work and are supported in doing their best work.
I invite you to explore these pages. If you have questions after browsing them, please contact us — we would be glad to hear from you.
Warm regards,
Jared Walsh, MD
Chief, Division of General Medicine