Upcoming Residency Program Will Expand Access
Benefis Health System continues to expand its role as a teaching facility, offering clinical educational opportunities to tomorrow’s providers and nurses. This expansion includes partnerships with local higher education institutions and the establishment of the Benefis Internal Medicine Residency Program.
The residency program, which will officially welcome its first group of medical school graduates in July 2025, includes training in both the hospital setting and in a dedicated outpatient internal medicine clinic. The outpatient clinic space is currently under construction on East Campus in Medical Office Building 12, and the residency program itself is hitting some exciting benchmarks.
Dr. Treena Sturgeon recently started her role with Benefis as the residency associate program director and the medical director of the outpatient residency clinic. She will supervise and teach the residents as they provide care for patients in the clinic.
Dr. Sturgeon views the program as a true partnership between Benefis and the community that will help expand access to primary care services.
“Patients will be established with a resident physician who will provide care over the course of the three-year program,” she says. “I think both the residents and their patients will be surprised by the partnership that can be built during that time, and the positive impact it can have on a person’s health.”
The partnership is also one of an educational nature, with the community doing some of the teaching.
“There is something very special the patient can teach that I can’t,” says Dr. Sturgeon. “The patient can teach the resident about their health, but also about how they have experienced health care and about the personal side of medicine.
The application system for the residency program recently opened, and the application review process is underway. The program will interview applicants from October through January and residents will “match” to programs at the end of March.
“We will know which residents will be coming to Benefis in March,” says Dr. Sturgeon.
Eventually, when students begin graduating from Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine Montana, they will be eligible to apply for the residency program. Touro COM Montana’s first class of students is currently completing their second year of medical school here in Great Falls.
“Residents come out of medical school and into this new environment ready to practice medicine and excited to get started,” says Dr. Sturgeon. “Our hope is for some of our residents to end up practicing medicine and providing care for the Great Falls community and surrounding areas for years to come.”
