‘Not enough docs.’ Will end of Tacoma physician training program worsen that?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- VMFH will end family medicine residency program with CHC in July.
- VMFH cites need to reallocate NICU capacity and staff for high‑acuity newborn care.
- Community Health Care seeks new partner to continue training for participants.
A Tacoma health system’s push to put more resources into critical care for newborns will bring an end to a local medical residency training program later this year.
Ending that training pipeline will increase pressure on an already strained availability of primary care physicians in the South Sound, the leader of the residency program contends.
Meanwhile, the health system contends that while family medicine remains important, the change is necessary to fulfill its own plans.
Tacoma-based Community Health Care announced in December that St. Joseph Medical Center was ending its affiliation with CHC’s family medicine residency training program as of July 1.
The partnership was established before Seattle-based Virginia Mason merged with Tacoma’s CHI Franciscan Health.
The program has been in place since 2014, and Virginia Mason merged with Tacoma-based CHI Franciscan (which included St. Joseph) in early 2021.
According to CHC’s website, “Our graduates have accepted jobs at a variety of local, state and national organizations – including Community Health Care. The program focuses on provider retention within Tacoma and Pierce County.”
CHC is a nonprofit network of community-based Federally Qualified Health Centers. It provides medical, dental, pharmacy and behavioral health as well as specialty healthcare services to underserved patients in Pierce County.
According to its website, “No one is denied care due to inability to pay. If you are uninsured or under-insured, we offer a sliding scale based on family size and income.”
The termination will leave one family medicine residency in place within VMFH’s network — in Kitsap County.
Dr. Carri Jo Timmer practices at Community Health Care’s Hilltop Regional Health Center, and serves as director of CHC’s family medicine residency program.
“Community Health Care is the safety net of Pierce County. We help keep people out of the ER, out of the need of specialists,” she told The News Tribune in a recent interview.
She recounted the struggles patients, even at her own facility, can face when seeking appointments with a primary care physician, with wait times sometimes extending months.
“If you get assigned one, you’re maybe six months to a year out at best. And the chances of that appointment getting canceled or delayed are high,” she noted.
“We struggle with that at CHC, too. But our mission is to increase accessibility, and we watch those numbers closely, and we’re mission-oriented providers who fit people in and just make it work, but it’s not ideal.
“There are too many patients and not enough docs,” she added.
What the program offers
The agreement between the two systems allows for the training in family medicine at St. Joseph as a component of the residency program.
Program participants must complete such training in clinics and hospitals to become board certified, a requirement for employment with most health care organizations, CHC noted in a December release about the coming change.
The program offers a chance for those specializing in family medicine “to provide thorough care to a broad spectrum of patients, including newborns, children, pregnant people and adults of all ages,” CHC said in the December news release. “Its affiliation with St. Joseph Medical Center started at the program’s inception.”
The residency has graduated 55 family physicians, CHC noted. The termination agreement includes St. Joseph Medical Center and all other Virginia Mason Franciscan Health facilities.
Dedicating resources elsewhere
VMFH sent a statement to The News Tribune in response to questions about the planned program termination.
“What we are increasingly seeing in Pierce County and surrounding areas is a critical need for higher-acuity newborn care close to home,” the health system stated. “With limited capacity and bed space at St. Joseph Medical Center and our Level III NICU, we must ensure we are dedicating these resources to our most vulnerable patients.”
It added, “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to end our agreement with Community Health Care’s residency rotation program, which allows us to reallocate resources and staffing where it is needed most: for our sickest newborns.”
“I would be curious to know how their shifting focus (to) critical infants would require them to break an affiliation agreement with a family medicine group,” Timmer told The News Tribune in response.
“I could see a great collaboration would be with primary care, so that we’re making females healthy prior to getting pregnant or during their pregnancy, so that we don’t have critically ill infants,” Timmer said.
VMFH noted in its statement that it will continue to host other residency programs “with over 225 residents,” including its family medicine residency program in Bremerton, which will be the last remaining such program in the VMFH network.
The Bremerton program, VMFH stated, “trains 24 physicians with 8 residents graduating each year. Most graduates stay in the region to practice and strengthen our long-term physician workforce.”
The future for medical program
Timmer said she anticipates continuing the residency with a new health system/hospital partner after this affiliation ends.
“If I can’t save the program, it’s not because I didn’t try my hardest,” Timmer said.
Tacoma-based MultiCare, in response to questions from The News Tribune, said in a statement Monday, “As a teaching health care system, we support local partners engaged in educating the next generation of health care professionals.”
It added, “In partnership with Community Health Care, we are currently evaluating options for more of their residents to rotate within our hospitals and clinics.”
This latest news comes as the two competing Tacoma health systems have each promoted improved medical offerings for families.
MultiCare’s new $480 million Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital is set to open this spring, while VMFH last spring announced a strategic affiliation with Seattle Children’s “to advance clinical excellence and expand pediatric and mother-baby care for patients in the Puget Sound region.”
Timmer told The News Tribune that she appreciated the extended time for transition provided by VMFH to align with the academic year, though noting that the termination still came as a surprise.
“Residency is a passion of mine, and graduate medical education is incredibly important to fix the health care system. But I’m most devastated by the patient harm that comes from this,” she said.
This story was originally published February 4, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
