Wellstar Health System-Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center Program

Program Identity & Fit

Wellstar Kennestone Family Medicine is a community-based, hospital-affiliated program built around a large tertiary referral center (Level I Trauma, Comprehensive Stroke Center, high-volume ED) that gives residents broad inpatient acuity alongside a dedicated continuity clinic and full-spectrum OB, pediatrics, and geriatrics exposure. Research is longitudinal but modest in scope, organized around a Community-Oriented Primary Care framework and population/social-determinants-of-health projects guided by a dedicated research faculty member rather than bench or high-output academic research. The program's stated outcomes skew toward outpatient primary care and hospitalist practice within the Wellstar system, with a smaller stream into fellowships (palliative medicine, sports medicine) and teaching roles, reflecting a culture that explicitly prizes cohesion, faculty accessibility, and resident well-being ("family" identity) over competitive academic positioning. Distinctive structural features include a resident-run inpatient family medicine service with graduated call responsibility, integrated behavioral health faculty embedded in continuity clinic, and an in-house palliative medicine fellowship pathway for interested graduates.