Overview
Click through the sections below to learn how our comprehensive approach goes beyond traditional medical training.
- Through our signature Capstone Curriculum, you’ll develop leadership skills and clinical expertise in seasonal intensive experiences.
- Our community medicine partnership with Petaluma Health Center, integrative and lifestyle medicine training, and climate-forward initiatives prepare you to address the complex health challenges of the 21st century.
- We emphasize diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism (DEIA) throughout your training while supporting scholarly activity and research.
- Our dedicated resident advising program ensures personalized mentorship as you grow into the physician leader you’re meant to become.
In the words of graduate Marissa Westerland, Class of 2025:
For anyone on the fence about applying to KP SRO, I would absolutely encourage you to apply and learn more if you have an interest in a program that emphasizes community, lifestyle, and preventative medicine. Sonoma County is such a special place to live and train, given the emphasis that our community has around the healing power of nature, outdoor exercise, supporting our local farmer’s, and prioritizing nourishing foods. I have often found myself even learning FROM our program and also my patient’s tips about cooking or new trails and gardening. Apply or come to any of our socials to ask questions and learn more!
Capstone Curriculum
Leadership for the future
Our Capstone Curriculum consists of immersive experiences designed to prepare each class for their next level of training. All residents participate in capstone weeks: two weeks in July, one week in fall, and one week in winter.
Three Seasonal Sessions:
- Summer – The Big Transition: Welcome new R1s, prepare each class to “level up” with team building and skill development. Rising R2s participate in community service at Ceres Community Project
- Fall – Settling In: Deepen clinical knowledge and residency connections after initial rotations, plus preparation for interview season
- Winter/Spring – Looking Ahead: Career planning, feedback sessions, and preparation for graduation or senior resident responsibilities
Six Core Learning Areas:
- Effective Family Medicine Skills Communication training, telemedicine, motivational interviewing, EMR optimization, billing and coding
- Full-Scope Clinical Training Advanced obstetrics (ALSO), emergency simulations, contraceptive procedures, point-of-care ultrasound in every session
- Medical Education & Leadership Teaching skills development, inclusive leadership training, presentation skills, personality assessments
- Self-Reflection & Career Planning CV workshops, career specialty panels, 1:1 planning with program director, personal mission retreats
- Community & Global Health Diversity and antiracism curriculum, Spanish language training, climate health, gender-affirming care, community partnerships
- Team Building & Culture Transition ceremonies, group outdoor activities, community service projects, shared meals and social events
- This curriculum ensures you develop both clinical excellence and leadership skills while building lasting connections with your residency community.
Community Medicine
Maximizing the total health, and health equity, of our communities.
Our program engages residents in community health from day one. We want our residents to obtain the knowledge and skills to lead sustainable positive community change throughout your career.
Residents receive a longitudinal curricular experience with our affiliated partner, Petaluma Health Center, a federally qualified health center (FQHC) which prides itself on being a high performing wellness and prevention-minded community health center. Residents see patients at PHC every time they are on community medicine rotations throughout their entire three years, precepted by our Community Medicine Fellow and PHC attending physicians.
Dedicated community medicine rotations in all three years include additional opportunities to care for our community and participate in leadership training focused on optimizing community health.
Residents facilitate access to the KP ACCESS program, in which uninsured patients at local FQHCs who are not able to obtain timely, affordable specialty care elsewhere in the community can receive short-term Kaiser Permanente coverage to gain access to free, vital specialty services. Residents become their temporary PCP and help navigate their care pathway through our system.
In addition to these experiences, residents can use elective time for community medicine electives at any of the following community sites with which we have affiliation agreements:
- Jewish Community Free Clinic
- Sonoma County Indian Health Project
- West County Health Center
- Ceres Community Project
- Petaluma Health Center: gynecology/prenatal clinics, OMT clinic.
- And more!
We also provide longitudinal didactics in community medicine, population health, public health, health equity, and advocacy for justice in healthcare.
Integrative Medicine
A focus on wellness and preventive care for both patients and physicians.
- In conjunction with the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine (AWCIM), our residency offers the Integrative Medicine in Residency (IMR) program—a 100-hour competency-based online curriculum designed for medical residents. This ACGME-aligned program addresses chronic illnesses and stress-related disorders through flexible, self-paced learning with 24-hour access. Residents receive a Certificate of Completion and access to 85+ additional hours of advanced content.
- Lifestyle Medicine Certification: All residents receive one free year of American College of Lifestyle Medicine membership and access to the Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum (LMRC). Upon completion, residents qualify for the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine (ABLM) certification exam.
- Personal Development: Mentorship, protected reflection time, and a culture of caring support professional growth.
- Longitudinal Training: HeartMath, Lifestyle Medicine, Food as Medicine, health promotion, preventive health, and evidence-based herbs and supplements.
- Expert Faculty: Many faculty have additional board certification in Integrative Medicine, Lifestyle Medicine, and integrative modalities (acupuncture, herbal medicine, manual medicine/OMT, mind-body techniques).
- Clinical Experience: All residents perform forty-minute integrative health consults during required rotations, with additional opportunities during elective time.
Physician Health and Resilience
Promoting Reflection and Personal Growth
Our program values a healthy work-life balance. We believe that doctors who take care of themselves take better care of their patients. With a humane schedule (no overnight shifts in the first year and no 24-hour call at all!), strict adherence to ACGME resident work hour requirements, and faculty who model healthy, balanced lifestyles, we ensure that our residents thrive. Our faculty model healthy, balanced lifestyles.
Formal residency resilience practice includes:
- Personal & Professional Development (P&PD) Groups: Regularly scheduled with protected time for each class, Personal and Professional Development (P&PD) sessions are facilitated by a faculty member to foster support and community during this time of dramatic growth.
- Resident Balint: Balint is a group method of discussing and reflecting on the doctor-patient relationship. The purpose of Balint is to build empathy for patients and to creatively explore the unique bond between doctor and patient.
- Residents participate in HeartMath training and mind-body techniques such as guided visualization, and meditation.
- Quarterly administration of the Physician Wellness Inventory(PWI) to support resident emotional and mental health.
- Fun! Regularly scheduled activities through Physician Health & Wellness (movie nights, ski trips, group hikes, sports games) and Live Well Be Well employee wellness program.
Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity
Leading the nation in equitable care and reduced disparities.
Through a longitudinal curriculum, residents also explore how historical, political, environmental, and institutional factors impact health equity and underlie health care disparities.
Other highlights include:
- Health Disparities and Racial Justice Curriculum along with training in culturally sensitive care.
- Options to care for patients in La Clinica, KP Santa Rosa’s Latine Health Module, which offers culturally responsive, bilingual care.
- KP Santa Rosa is a nationally recognized leader in LGBTQ+ Care – opportunities for advanced training in transgender medicine.
- Opportunities for research around social determinants of health and reducing disparities in health outcomes.
- Commitment to the promotion and support of diversity within the residency and community by participating in pathway programs for high school, junior college and undergraduate students with the goal of attracting residents, faculty, and staff of diverse cultural backgrounds and life experiences to better serve our communities.
Kaiser Permanente has provided culturally responsive, prevention-focused healthcare for over 65 years through integrated, technologically advanced, outcomes-based clinical care. While national healthcare diversity typically correlates with outcome disparities, Kaiser Permanente Northern California is a significant exception, renowned for culturally respectful care and an innovative integrated delivery model that reduces healthcare disparities within our increasingly diverse Santa Rosa population.
Scholarly Activity and Leadership
Tools for success: time, training, and resources.
- We wrap support around residents and faculty to harness their passion to advance the field of Family Medicine through clinically relevant, community focused QI projects, scholarly activity, and innovation. All residents have time and support to complete their two required scholarly activity projects (and often more!) within the three years of training.Highlights include:
- 1:1 support from the residency’s full-time senior research project manager.
- Kaiser Permanente’s renowned Division of Research is available for programming and biostatistical support for resident projects.
- A network of clinical librarians to help ground projects in the latest research.
- Annual residency “Scholarly Shark Tank” – our fun and collaborative forum for showcasing resident and faculty scholarly projects. During Shark Tank, residents and faculty pitch their research proposals to recruit other resident and faculty colleagues to “buy in” and collaborate on their project.
- Training and funding are available locally and regionally to support the dissemination of scholarly activity through both conferences and publication.
- Training in teaching and clinical leadership through Personal and Professional Development rotations in the second and third years.
- Opportunities to present scholarly outputs at a KPNC regional scholarly symposium, UCSF Family and Community Medicine Colloquium, and other regional/national conferences such as STFM.
Climate Forward Curriculum
As a climate-forward residency, we acknowledge that climate change is one of the largest threats to human health for the foreseeable future and that physicians are already on the front lines of the climate and health crisis. We also recognize the enormous impact that the US healthcare system has on the production of greenhouse gases and global warming.
We are working to integrate climate-related topics into our residency education. Our goal is that residents graduate and practice medicine though a climate-informed lens. We are committed to finding ways to reduce our carbon footprint and train residents who can become advocates for climate health through the following:
- Didactics focused on climate change and an upcoming climate health elective.
- Discouraging single use plastics (e.g. we strongly encourage use of metal speculums and other reusable tools that reduce waste; we provide residents and faculty with a set of bamboo cutlery to reuse).
- Appropriate bins for composting and recycling.
- Support for any resident or faculty interested in training to be a Climate Ambassador through Climate For Health (link: https://climateforhealth.org/)
- Relevant resident and faculty scholarly projects related to effects of wildfires on health and morbidity, educating patients in health and the planetary benefit of a plant-forward diet.
- Faculty are working with regional KP leadership to transform our hospital menu into a plant-forward menu. We are working to eliminate beef and redesign the menu to a shift in what foods patients are ordering and are creating additional planet-forward dietary information for patient rooms.
- Sub-I experiences focused on climate change.
Here are a few short reflections on climate change written by students and faculty: Climate change. The air feels strange. Heavy. Sister wheezes more now—every smoky day. Every summer. I check the AQI before I move now, before I breathe. I hate that. I think about my future kids. My future patients. How do you even heal lungs when the air itself is sick? (MS4) Everything has a tinge of “will this be there for future generations?” Driving to old growth redwoods. Learning about the loggers, how this all used to be trees. It’s hard to look past what’s in front of you, to look past the trees. Taking the time to look may be where we need to start. (MS4)
My gloved hands receive the newborn through teary eyes, always in awe of the miracle before me. Baby’s first dramatic breath draws in smokey air. Particles have already crossed the placenta. Born pre-polluted by generations of human activity. Happy tears. Sad tears. Welcome to the world, little one. (Michelle Mertz, Faculty)
Residency Advising Program
Our dedicated faculty advisors work with a resident over the course of their residency training. Incoming residents have access to advisor bios and will submit their selection through a ranking process. The program provides catered lunches and protected time for the resident/advisor pair to meet monthly. These meetings are 1:1 to provide the space for the advisor to learn about the residents’ professional interests, listen to areas of struggle, and provide guidance to help residents meet their specific career goals. Advisors advocate for residents and receive ongoing training focused on helping residents find joy and meaning in medicine.
