Chair’s Message
Tulane Department of Family Medicine
Welcome to the Tulane Department of Family Medicine. I’m glad you’ve taken the time to learn more about who we are and what we do. Our department brings together a dedicated group of faculty and staff who are passionate about all things Family Medicine.
Since our founding in 1998, the department has grown through the vision and leadership of Dr. Richard Streiffer, our first chair, and Dr. Eddie Dennard, who continued to build our programs and partnerships across New Orleans. I’m proud to carry that work forward, and excited about where we’re headed next.
Our faculty are closely involved in all aspects of medical student education—supporting students from their first day on campus through their clinical clerkships. Whether it’s through pre-clinical electives, the family medicine clerkship, or senior acting internships, we aim to offer students meaningful, hands-on experiences that reflect the breadth and depth of our field.
We also support Tulane’s student-run clinics, which provide important care to underserved populations while giving students a powerful introduction to service and team-based care. These clinics embody what we value most—meeting people where they are, listening carefully, and making a difference through everyday relationships.
In addition to our work with students, we serve as the academic affiliate for the East Jefferson General Hospital and DePaul Community Health Centers Family Medicine Residency Programs. Our faculty contribute to resident education, mentorship, and scholarship in collaboration with these important training sites.
Ultimately, our goal is to help students discover the value and meaning of primary care. Family medicine offers a chance to develop long-term relationships with patients, work across disciplines, and advocate for healthier communities. It’s both intellectually stimulating and deeply personal. We believe those are the qualities that make it a rewarding career—and we’re here to share that with the next generation.
Whether you are a prospective student, resident, faculty member, or community partner, we invite you to join us in shaping the future of Family Medicine at Tulane.
Sincerely,
Rade N. Pejic, M.D., M.M.M.
Chair, Department of Family Medicine
Associate Professor of Family Medicine
Tulane University School of Medicine
The Department is responding to the challenge in several ways, including updating our clerkship teaching and participating in a growing research network of primary-care clinics devoted to patient-centered outcomes. Our clerkship teaching has been revised to incorporate the principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home into our entire curriculum and to add clerkship teaching modules on essential primary-care communication skills, chronic disease management model of care, and continuous clinical quality improvement. We anticipate that these will be part of the essential knowledge base of primary care physicians as our health care evolves from its current encounter-based focus to a population management, outcomes-driven healthcare system. The Department is reinvigorating its scholarly mission through efforts to create a clinic-based research network for our region with goal of participating in national research initiatives of interest to primary care physicians and patients. Our ultimate goal is to participate actively as full partners in a national effort to make the primary-care clinic of the future a site for research into patient-centered outcomes.
Family Medicine is an exciting place to be at this point looking into the future, and our growing importance to the healthcare system of the future is already evident in dramatic rises in opportunity for Family Physicians. Merritt Hawkins reported in 2013 that Family Medicine remains for the seventh straight year the “most requested and difficult search out there in term of the sheer number of requests.” This is a function of both increasing demand and a flat supply of graduating medical students choosing a career in primary care. Even as supply increases, we anticipate that long-term demand pressures driven by healthcare system changes will continue to make primary care a valued and sought after specialty in the market place. Market place value translates into career flexibility both terms of the type of work arrangements and locality. Family physicians are fully prepared to serve in clinics, hospitals and urgent care settings, including emergency departments, and in urban, suburban and rural communities.
We invite you to contact us to see how a career in Family Medicine could be the ideal choice for you.
