Welcome to our Genesys Family Medicine Residency Program website!

Kenneth Yokosawa, M.D.

Our program began in 1971 and is now the largest Family Medicine Residency Program in Michigan and one of the largest programs in the country.   We have 39 residency positions (13/13/13) and are dually accredited by both the ACGME and the AOA. 

As the national trend in the 1990’s was to downsize the number of hospital beds, we merged four Flint area hospitals together to form Genesys Regional Medical Center.  We moved into a beautiful new state-of-the-art facility in 1997 in Grand Blanc, Michigan,   right off the I-75 corridor, south of Flint and north of the Detroit suburbs.

Two of the four hospitals that merged were teaching hospitals, St. Joseph Hospital (where the allopathic family practice program was the only residency program in the hospital) and Flint Osteopathic Hospital (where the family practice program was one of many osteopathic programs in the hospital).   We combined these two family practice residency programs together and over the past eleven years, we have enjoyed the benefits of this unique combination and the rich history of both of these programs.  

I am a graduate of the St. Joseph residency program and served as Assistant Director before becoming Program Director in 2001.  I have thoroughly enjoyed watching our program evolve into what it is today.   We have a great blend of residents, both male and female, MD’s and DO’s, U.S. medical school graduates, and international grads.  

We are constantly striving to provide an educational experience for our residents that meets or exceeds accreditation requirements and at the same time responds to the changing environment of our specialty.   For example, we completely revamped our curriculum this year to create three separate educational tracks emphasizing ambulatory medicine, obstetrics, and inpatient medicine.

Our goal is to prepare our residents for the family practice of tomorrow.  Our graduates are as comfortable and proficient with the business side of medicine and information technology as they are in all aspects of family medicine.  In fact, our graduates tell us that they are considered the “experts” in billing and coding in their practices, thanks to our dedicated teaching in this area.

I’d like to introduce you to my partner and co-director, John Georgakopoulos, D.O.  Please read his message and then visit the other areas of our website to learn more about Genesys and our Family Medicine Residency Program.       

John Georgakopoulos, D. O.

“Unless you teach it, preach it, and practice it, neither you nor osteopathic medicine will survive.”                                                                       A.T. Still

The current system for delivering health care in the United States is coming to a crossroads; some proclaim we are in a crisis regarding the healthcare delivery in this country.  Who is best suited to provide primary medical care: the specialist physician or the family physician?   The current system for delivering healthcare in this country has been under attack for not meeting the medical needs of the population for many years.  There is increasing pressure by patients, employers, insurance companies, and the government to change our healthcare system.  At the center of the proposed changes are both the patient and the primary care physician.  More than ever, there is emphasis being placed on medical education to train primary care physicians to fill the growing void in primary care.   Although there are many challenges ahead, this is an exciting time for the osteopathic and allopathic family medicine profession as we will be the stewards for developing and delivering a comprehensive healthcare system in the United States.

Rich in its traditions, Family Medicine is best suited as the medical discipline to meet these expectations and growing demands on our health care delivery system.  The knowledge required to become a family physician is vast and often overwhelming.  This program is committed to fulfilling our “Covenant with Society:" to train an excellent family physician.  We will take the resident through the process of first understanding and treating symptoms and associated diseases to integrating this knowledge into providing comprehensive medical care for the patient.  Additionally, the resident will understand how illness impacts the patient and the family unit as well as how to promote wellness through prevention. 

Our Family Medicine residency program blends the osteopathic and allopathic disciplines into a comprehensive approach towards caring for the family unit.  It is our commitment to prepare our graduates to practice family medicine where they will be excellent family physicians treating the patient and the family.  I take the statement made by A.T. Still one step further: “Unless you teach it, preach it, practice it, neither you or nor family medicine will survive.”