About Us

Valley Consortium for Medical Education founded in 2009, is a non-profit community benefit organization affiliated with UC Davis. With participation from major health care organization in Stanislaus County, and affiliation with several medical schools, VCME strive to foster community-based undergraduate and graduate medical education in the Central Valley of California.

Valley Consortium for Medical Education has been recognized nationally as a model community partnership for medical education, and was designated as California's first Teaching Health Center Site*.

Our program works with a large, multi-specialty faculty to staff a county health system, delivering both hospital and outpatient care. This system is the health care "safety-net" for our community, caring for many people who would otherwise be without care.

Inpatient care is done at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto as outpatient care is conducted primarily in Golden Valley Health Center clinics. Doctors Medical Centers' mission is to be recognized as the foremost health care facility in Central California- The yardstick against which all other health care facilities are measured. Whereas Golden Valley Health Center is dedicated to their mission statement, providing "access to high-quality health care for all, serving with dignity, respect and compassion".

Our patient population is diverse: 50% are Hispanic and 10% are Southeast Asian. The ability to speak Spanish is desirable, although translators are easily available since many of our staff are bilingual.

Many of our patients are economically disadvantaged. 80% percent of our patients are on Medicaid (Medi-Cal), 15% are on Medi-Care, and 5% are uninsured (self-pay on sliding-fee scale). We are proud of the care that we provide to people who might otherwise be denied access.

Last but not least, the residency program has an educational philosophy that guides our training model and has resulted in excellent graduates ready to enter a wide variety of practice settings.

Where do residents end up?

Two thirds of our graduates stay in California
One-third of our graduates stay in the Central Valley.
Over half of our graduates practice in underserved settings during their career.

* A portion of Valley Family Medicine Residency of Modesto was supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the THC-GME grant for up to 19 FTEs per year. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government