Aurora Health Care Elkhorn Program

Program Identity & Fit

This is a rural-track family medicine residency with a distinctive split structure: PGY1 in Milwaukee alongside the Aurora St. Luke's Family Medicine categorical residents for inpatient/ED exposure, followed by PGY2-3 fully immersed in Elkhorn at Aurora Lakeland Medical Center, where continuity clinic runs for all three years. The explicit mission is producing full-spectrum family physicians equipped for rural practice, with faculty holding UW School of Medicine and Public Health academic appointments and access to rotations across UW-affiliated Wisconsin family medicine programs. Scholarship is built around two required projects - a practice-based quality improvement project and a resident-directed project tied to community medicine in the Lakeland area - reflecting an applied, practice-improvement orientation rather than bench or basic science research. The program explicitly states it wants graduates who will consider establishing practice in rural areas, especially south central Wisconsin, signaling a values-driven, geographically-anchored mission over broad career flexibility.