Underway with steady progress
The first More in Common Alliance residency program at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, California onboarded its first class of residents in Summer 2024. Three additional California sites are in varied assessment stages in Bakersfield, Oxnard, and Los Angeles. A hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee is under review as a potential site with a rural medicine focus.
July 2024—Dominican Hospital, Santa Cruz, California
As the first residency program launched through the More in Common Alliance, Dominican is representative of the selection process and timeline. Dominican was identified in 2021 from a survey of several hundred CommonSpirit Health hospitals in 21 states, as meeting three key selection criteria:
- The hospital was “GME Naïve,” with no residency or academic program already in place at the hospital.
- The surrounding community, Santa Cruz County, had a demonstrated need for the health care and workforce development the program would provide.
- The potential for impact was significant, with Dominican Hospital being a thriving hospital, well integrated into the community, with an aligned decades-long mission between Dignity Health and the Dominican Sisters to serve the region’s most vulnerable populations.
Dominican also operates three Federally Qualified Health Centers that serve as a safety net to the underserved, which will be integral parts of the GME curriculum.