History

Montefiore, established in the 1880’s to care for poor Jewish immigrants, has a long and nationally recognized tradition of providing care to underserved communities. In 1970 it established the Martin Luther King (MLK) Health Center, which served the South Bronx. Three years later, the Residency Program in Social Medicine (RPSM) came into being at MLK as a vehicle for training ambulatory care practitioners who excelled not only in providing high quality medical care, but who were equally well versed in the use of the behavioral and social sciences to address the overall mental and physical health of the community. Over the past five decades, the RPSM has grown into a unique network of clinics serving the entire Bronx community.

Montefiore’s Family Medicine residency program trains ambulatory care practitioners in providing evidence-based medical care and who were well versed in addressing the aspects of health encompassed by the behavioral and social sciences. From its inception, the program dedicated itself to the application of a biopsychosocial model of health care to better understand the effect of individuals, families, communities, culture, and economics on overall well-being. Founders believed that this type of comprehensive medicine was best practiced as part of a team focused on providing community-oriented primary care in Bronx neighborhoods. With these ideals in mind, the program at Montefiore has continued to evolve and adapt, both to the changing needs of the communities that it serves and to the residents and faculty who work within them.

The RSPM is one of the nation’s oldest and most successful training programs dedicated to training primary care physicians. The RPSM developed an innovative community-oriented primary care (COPC) curriculum to train residents in providing care in urban communities. In 1995 the Residency Program in Social Medicine became the first institution awarded the National Primary Care Achievement Award in Education from the Pew Charitable Trusts.