The Nurse Practitioner Residency Program at PCHC
With an unprecedented demand for primary care providers who can deliver outstanding, effective care, nurse practitioners are critically important to the future of our region’s health. PCHC’s twelve-month residency is specifically focused on increasing the clinical knowledge and skills of new Family Nurse Practitioners (FNPs), providing them with a positive transitional experience from school to practice and an opportunity to become expert providers under the guidance of an experienced mentor.
The goal of the program is to produce highly knowledgeable primary care providers who are confident in their abilities and dedicated to staying in the field, thereby increasing access to needed health care in our rural and aging state.
Program Overview
Each resident will have an assigned medical assistant to work with them throughout the week. Each resident will also have on-site access to a nurse care manager, social worker, outreach and enrollment specialist, primary care pharmacist, prescription refill specialist, and quality business partner.
3 Days a Week: Patient Care Clinic
Each resident will be placed in one of PCHC’s four sites: PCHC Center, Seaport, Helen Hunt Health Center, or Adult Wellness Center (residents will remain in the same site throughout residency). Residents will see patients three days a week with a reduced panel size. Residents will have scheduled patients for 8 hours and will have another 2 hours of administrative time to catch up on documentation and coordinate care.
Once a week on Tuesdays, each resident will meet as a cohort with the Residency Director and other residents for 1 hour to review patients, discuss challenges with the role, and support one another through the transition of managing a panel of patients in primary care. During this weekly scheduled time, the residents will also have a scheduled 1 hour for a Didactic learning session (including but not limited to Nexplanon Training, LGTBQ+ Care, Antibiotic Stewardship, Malpractice Cases, Panel Management, and Professionalism to name just a few), 1 hour Journal Club and Case Review to garner additional skills and expertise needed to succeed in primary care.
1 Day a Week: Internal Specialty Rotations
Below is a list of potential Specialty Rotations, each resident will see patients or shadow with a preceptor during these rotations. (see the following items for more information about the internal locations).
- School–Based Health Center (2 Weeks)
- Community Care and Geriatrics (5 Weeks)
- Recovery Medicine (7 Weeks)
- Homeless Healthcare at Hope House (4 Weeks)
- Walk-In Care at Brewer, Bangor, Pediatrics, and Old Town Locations (5 Weeks)
- Transitions of Care (4 Weeks)
- Office Procedures (4 Weeks)
- Psychiatry (4 Weeks)
- Pediatrics (6 Weeks)
- Jackman Community Health Center (1 Week Immersion)
- Elective (2 Weeks)
- Didactics
During this rotation residents will be seeing patients for acute care needs, well-child visits, and chronic disease care, as well as performing health risk assessments. Residents will also have an interdisciplinary experience with dental and mental health staff while working at the Brewer, Bangor, and Old Town School–Based Health Centers.
This rotation features ongoing, collaborative, and integrated medical care for seniors and adults with unique needs. The resident will be focused on providing solutions for patients, caregivers, and their families in nursing homes, long-term care facilities, and patient homes. The resident will care for elderly patients and patients with disabilities in long-term care settings, as well as medical and surgical patients of all ages who require a post-acute stay in a skilled nursing facility for rehabilitation prior to transitioning back to their pre-admission home environment. Click here for more information.
During this rotation, residents will care for patients through group therapy, buprenorphine (Suboxone) inductions, and ongoing medication-assisted treatment. Prior to this rotation, residents will be provided time to complete their buprenorphine X-waiver.
Residents will be working with the inter-professional care team of mental health professionals, nurses, medical assistant health coaches, social workers, medical assistants, and housing navigators to provide medical services to homeless and peri-homeless individuals. Through this integrated medical model of care they will have an opportunity to offer services that this population of individuals would not typically have access to, such as case management and housing assistance. Click here for more information.
Residents will have the opportunity to provide acute care to PCHC patients, as well as others within the community, who have immediate medical needs. Residents will gain experience working with conditions such as sprains and strains, upper respiratory, urinary, and other minor infections, sore throat, and cough, as well as those with complex medical needs. Residents will be expected to work a full 12-hours walk-in care shift. Click here for more information.
During this rotation residents will be working closely with a care team of medical assistants, nurses, social workers, and pharmacists to meet with patients who are at high risk for readmission. Medical assistants perform rounds at the local hospitals to offer the transitions of care service to patients and meet with the discharge planners to coordinate their transition from the inpatient setting to the home. The care team then meets with the patient in the patient’s home within 72 hours of discharge from an acute care setting. During this visit they will provide education on discharge instructions, conduct a nursing assessment, and ensure the patient has follow-up appointments with a provider. The social worker screens for and identifies social determinants of health impacting a patient’s wellness and identifies community linkages that can address these social determinants. The pharmacist provides medication education, teaching, and reconciliation.
During this rotation, residents will have the opportunity to learn office procedures such as laceration repair, foreign body removal, incision and drainage, suturing, biopsies, and excision of skin lesions from an experienced provider.
Mental health and substance use disorder services are integrated within our primary medical care model. Services for PCHC patients include psychiatric consultations, psychiatric evaluations, psychosocial evaluations, individual psychotherapy and counseling, group psychotherapy, family psychotherapy, couples counseling, case management, medication-assisted treatment/recovery for addiction, and psychiatric medication management. Click here for more information.
During this rotation, residents will work closely with our pediatricians to care for patients from birth to 21 years of age. Residents will be performing well-child checks and providing chronic disease care as well as same-day sick care in our pediatric walk-in. Residents will also gain experience caring for children in a variety of settings, including our foster care program and newborns born substance-exposed in our CHAMP clinic. Click here for more information.
Residents will gain experience in rural emergency and primary care in our remote Jackman practice. This community health center is open 24 hours/day, 365 days a year. Our clinic’s “emergency room” stabilizes patients until they can be transported to a hospital over an hour away or airlifted to an appropriate hospital for further stabilization and treatment. Click here for more information.
Residents will have an opportunity to select another rotation within the community or repeat a previous internal rotation at PCHC.
There will be didactics throughout the residency including Antibiotic Stewardship, Malpractice Cases, and Panel Management, to name just a few. They will be held throughout the residency on Tuesdays, during a portion of the residency meeting time.
1 Day a Week: External Rotation at a Rural Maine Health Care Facility
Residents will be assigned to one of the external rural health care facilities below and will be doing acute care visits, well-child checks, annual wellness visits, and physicals while they are on-site. During this rotation they will not have a panel of patients.
- Maine Family Planning
Residents will work closely with our partners at Maine Family Planning to learn a variety of gynecological health care services such as long-acting reversible contraception, pap smears, quick start birth control, and STD screening for our patients. https://mainefamilyplanning.org/
PCHC IN NUMBERS
YEAR RESIDENCY PROGRAM
Learn clinical knowledge and fine-tune your skills under the guidance of an experienced mentor.
RESIDENTS PER CLASS
Small class size gives you the advantage of a more intimate and tailored learning experience.
PRACTICES & SERVICE SITES
PCHC provides a wide range of services including family medicine, dental, pediatrics, mental health, and specialty services.
TEAM MEMBERS
PCHC’s 750+ staff members provide care for 65,000 patients and 350,000 visits a year.
MORE INFORMATION
LIVING IN MAINE
Maine offers a quality of life that no other state can match—it really is “The Way Life Should Be.” And Bangor is a centrally located, growing Maine city with a small-town feel. Most folks live comfortably in safe neighborhoods surrounded by top-rated schools, great shops, and thriving food and entertainment options.
Accreditation
This health center is a Health Center Program grantee under 42 U.S.C. 254b, and a deemed Public Health Service employer under 42 U.S.C. 233(g)-(n). PCHC is a FTCA Deemed Facility.