Hackensack Meridian Health-Ocean University Medical Center Program

Program Identity & Fit

This is a community-based, osteopathically-recognized family medicine program at a 319-bed Jersey Shore hospital within the Hackensack Meridian Health network, built around a distinctive model of embedding residents across four separate outpatient practices that function as individual private practices, including a Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative site and Patient-Centered Medical Homes. Residents build their own longitudinal patient panels under community-based faculty, gain procedural exposure (joint injections, minor surgical and dermatologic procedures, OMM, women's health), and rotate through an on-campus acute rehabilitation and nursing facility for geriatric/post-acute care experience. Research is present as a curricular value (scholarship, presentation, publication encouraged) but the program's identity centers on full-scope outpatient continuity practice and progressive clinical autonomy rather than investigative output. As a relatively young program (inaugural class 2018), it emphasizes resident-driven panel-building, tailoring training across differing practice-site "flavors," and preparing graduates for direct community/private-practice family medicine.