Benefits of a Program with FM-AIRE

A Residency Built to Grow With Resident Interests

Every resident who matches into one of our MCWAH Family Medicine Residencies is automatically eligible for FM-AIRE — you simply opt in once you know it’s the right fit for you. What you gain isn’t just knowledge — it’s clinical courage: the ability to walk into a room with a complex patient and know what to do.

• Behavioral health training is woven into your schedule, not bolted on after graduation — you leave residency having already practiced it.
• Develop clinical courage — the confidence to sit with ambiguity, manage complex psychiatric presentations, and make the call yourself instead of reflexively referring out.
• No separate Match required. FM-AIRE is a pathway inside the residency you already matched into.
• Earn a certificate in Advanced Mental Health Care in Primary Care through the UMass Chan Medical School Center for Integrated Primary Care.
• Train alongside faculty from both Family and Community Medicine and Psychiatry & Behavioral Medicine.
• Graduate ready to help close a documented shortage of behavioral health clinicians in Wisconsin and across the country — a real, differentiating credential in the job market.

The Path: How FM-AIRE Fits Into Your Residency Experience

An Interleaved Path, Not a Bolt-On Year

FM-AIRE isn’t a separate fourth year tacked onto the end of training. Once you opt in, your behavioral health area of concentration (AOC) rotations are interleaved directly into your third-year elective and training blocks — building toward a fourth year where you go deep with sustained, continuity-based care.

PGY-1 — Build Your Foundation

Standard, full-breadth family medicine training. Explore your interests, including behavioral health, alongside faculty and near-peer mentors already in the FM-AIRE pathway.

PGY-2 — Your Decision Year

You’ll continue building core family medicine skills. If you’re drawn to behavioral health integration, let your program director know by January 1 — the midpoint of PGY-2 — so we can build your interleaved PGY-3 schedule together.

PGY-3 — Interleaved Training

If you opt in and are selected, FM-AIRE rotations are woven into your standard third-year schedule alongside your existing elective and training blocks — not instead of them. Experiences include addiction medicine, consult-liaison psychiatry, collaborative care psychiatry, emergency psychiatry, psychiatry e-consult services, and outpatient pain medicine with a behavioral health focus.

PGY-4 — The Longitudinal Year

Your fourth year shifts focus to sustained, continuity-based care. You’ll spend the year in three longitudinal clinics — primary care psychiatry, brief psychotherapy, and your continuity family medicine panel — while completing your certificate in Advanced Mental Health Care in Primary Care through UMass Chan.

DECISION POINT
Entering PGY-2 — with a deadline of January 1, the midpoint of the PGY-2 academic year.

The Longitudinal Clinics (PGY-4 Emphasis)

Three Clinics. One Full Year of Continuity.

These clinics run the entire PGY-4 year and are the heart of the fourth-year experience — giving you real, ongoing relationships with patients rather than a series of short rotations.

• Primary Care Psychiatry Clinic — psychiatry and family medicine faculty-supervised, focused on psychopharmacology, crisis management, and consultation.
• Brief Psychotherapy Clinic — a psychotherapy and behavioral medicine clinic building continuity relationships with patients.
• Continuity Family Medicine Clinic — residents keep their family medicine panel, so behavioral health training sharpens comprehensive care rather than replacing it.
• Esketamine administration in primary care – learn and manage cutting edge treatment for treatment resistant depression.