Texas Institute for Graduate Medical Education and Research TIGMER Program

Program Identity & Fit

TIGMER's Community-Based Family Medicine Residency is a Teaching Health Center GME program funded through the Texas State GME Expansion Grant and CommuniCare/UIWSOM support, built explicitly to train primary care physicians for underserved, safety-net populations in San Antonio. Ambulatory continuity clinic anchors the curriculum at CommuniCare West Campus and Haven for Hope's Restoration Center, supplemented by inpatient rotations across three hospital systems (Baptist, Methodist, CHRISTUS) and two VA sites, giving broad exposure without a tertiary/quaternary or subspecialty focus. The program is heavily osteopathically influenced (majority DO faculty and residents, monthly OMM workshops, pursuit of Osteopathic Recognition) and emphasizes hands-on procedural skill-building (suturing, POCUS, toenail removal workshops) plus board-exam preparation, with research offered only as a four-week elective rather than a core expectation. Graduate outcomes and site structure point toward a program valuing residents committed to community/underserved primary care and continuity-based, whole-person practice rather than academic or fellowship pathways.