Silver City, NM (April 26, 2018) – Out of more than 900 initial program applicants, the Hidalgo Medical Services (HMS) Family Medicine Residency Program (FMRP) recently was matched with two, new resident family medicine physicians who will begin their training with HMS in July 2018. Those doctors are Mason Heywood, MD, and James T. Shen, MD.
The HMS FMRP is a 1+2 residency program, in which 1st year resident physicians complete their first year in a larger academic medical center, and then complete their 2nd and 3rd years of residency on-site with HMS. Both Doctors Heywood and Shen will complete their first year of residency at Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, and they will then complete their final, two years of residency training at the HMS Silver City Community Health Center. The ongoing success of the HMS FMRP depends directly on the collaborative partnerships with HMS and its clinical preceptors. HMS FMRP resident physicians complete a diverse curriculum that includes anesthesia, behavioral health, cardiology, community health orientation, dermatology, emergency medicine, electives/selectives, evidence-based medicine, family medicine inpatient and outpatient, geriatrics, gynecology outpatient and women’s health, newborn nursery, obstetrics inpatient, orthopedics and sports medicine, pediatric inpatient and outpatient, podiatry, practice management, pulmonology, radiology, and surgery services.
Darrick Nelson, MD, HMS Chief Medical Officer and FMRP Director stated, "HMS Family Medicine Resident Physicians are fully immersed in the patient-centered delivery care model and are a key component to the success of HMS delivering high quality, low cost care to community patients. It is our goal that HMS resident physicians will permanently stay in southwestern New Mexico, upon graduating from their residency program, to serve the healthcare needs of our community.” Dan Otero, HMS Chief Executive Officer added, "Dr. Nelson and the HMS Family Medicine Residency Program faculty leaders seek to train the next generation of family medicine primary care physicians in a rural community health center environment – right here in Hidalgo and Grant counties. Since July 2013, various healthcare providers in both Hidalgo and Grant counties have come together, and continue to work very hard, to ensure quality patient care and patient safety offered within the communities that HMS serves."
Mason Heywood MDDr. Mason Heywood grew up in the small community of Magna, Utah. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Health Promotion and Education from the University of Utah. After graduating, he spent several years working in medical research in the field of Pediatric Cardiology before going back to school to obtain his medical degree from St. George’s University on the island of Grenada, and completed his clinical rotations in Paterson, New Jersey.
James T. Shen MDDr. James T. Shen was born and raised in Southern California. He is the oldest of four children and has been interested in medicine from his earliest memories. After graduating with a Bachelor's of Science in Biological Sciences from University of California Riverside, he went on earn his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Dr. Shen finished a surgical internship at Albert Einstein Medical Center before starting his military service with the United States Air Force Special Operations Command as a Special Operations Forces Medical Element (SOFME) Flight Surgeon.
HMS is Hidalgo and Grant counties’ only federally qualified community health center and serves approximately 16,000 patients every year. Recognized as New Mexico’s first teaching health center, the HMS Family Medicine Residency Program has graduated 5 Family Medicine Physicians since 2015, will be graduating 2 more physicians in June 2018, and maintains a 100% American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) board certification exam passing rating of its physician residents. To learn more about HMS and its Family Medicine Residency Program, please visit www.hmsnm.org or http://newmexicoresidencies.org/silver-city.