UPMC Horizon Family Medicine Residency accepts six residents per year and is rooted in a strong community-oriented mission in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, a semi-rural community located approximately 60 miles north of Pittsburgh and 70 miles southeast of Cleveland.
The mission of our program is to train residents in a small-town and rural environment to become exceptional family medicine physicians while meeting the needs of the communities of Mercer and Lawrence Counties. We work to customize your training to meet each resident's respective career goals. Our program features direct, one-on-one interaction with specialists as well as our strong team of experienced, passionate family medicine faculty practicing in both the inpatient and outpatient settings.
UPMC Horizon Family Medicine Residency oversees all the adult inpatient care at the Shenango Valley hospital. Residents receive extensive training in inpatient management, emergency care, and inpatient point of care ultrasound. Our maternity care department delivers about 1200 babies annually and we offer strong newborn and L and D experiences for our trainees. Most of your training is provided within the local community and travel around town is easy. For rotations outside of Mercer County, especially at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, we provide housing and reimbursement for travel to minimize your travel time and maximize your learning opportunities.
UPMC Horizon's Family Health Center (FHC) is called Shenango Valley Family Medicine (SVFM). Our practice is highly rated for quality and patient satisfaction. Our office is located adjacent to the hospital, allowing residents and faculty to meet the needs of the local community by improving access to primary care and providing a comprehensive medical home. SVFM provides comprehensive medical care to patients of all ages through team-based care. Along with our faculty and residents, we work with care managers, clinical pharmacists, social workers, and advanced practice nurses.
Our office is the hub of the program and holds our resident and faculty offices along with our didactic conference room. Outpatient women's health procedures, dermatologic procedures, point-of-care ultrasound, and joint injections are routinely performed along with medication assisted therapies for opioid and alcohol use disorders.
Graduates of our program go on to serve diverse communities across Western Pennsylvania and throughout the United States. They practice in various settings, including outpatient primary care, hospital medicine, emergency departments, and urgent care — making a meaningful impact wherever they go.
At UPMC Horizon, we take pride in the fact that our doctor/patient relationships have been built on one unwavering principle: we treat patients the same way we'd like to be treated - with care, compassion, and respect.
The first year provides incoming residents with solid introduction to the breadth and diversity of family medicine. It includes a series of inpatient rotations at UPMC Horizon (internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, and emergency medicine), one month of inpatient pediatrics at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Call during the intern year is dependent upon the rotation. On the inpatient medicine rotation, interns take in-house call during the daytime every other weekend. The rest of the intern class alternates for the other weekends. Weekend call outside of the inpatient rotation is 1 in 6 weekends. During the OB month, interns may take call up to once a week. Call can be assigned during inpatient pediatrics at times.
Residents also spend one half-day session, per week, in the Family Medicine Center.
The second and third-year curriculum offers a broader array of experiences, along with the required rotations by the ACGME, in order to achieve a greater educational experience in the depths of family medicine.
Second year residents spend 3 half-day sessions, on average, per week in the office and third year residents spend 3-4 half-day sessions, depending upon the rotation.
Additional continuity experiences in the second and third year include:
Night float rotations are utilized to cover the inpatient services in the hospital. These occur during the PGY-2 and PGY-3 years. All night float rotations adhere to all duty hour requirements of the ACGME.
We are able to utilize the full benefits of our large tertiary-care system to access electives in many fields with appropriate advance planning. We strongly believe in the benefits of customizing your residency experience to achieve your future practice goals.
The continuity training experience, within the continuity of care family practice clinic, provides the resident with a training environment equivalent to that of a private practice.
The continuity training experience will develop those skills and experiences necessary to give the resident the competence and confidence to provide exceptional patient care.
The goals of the continuity training experience are to provide:
Residents are often recruited to the local community to continue the compassionate and comprehensive care they have been taught.
Audition rotations are available for students currently in an Osteopathic or AAMC accredited medical school. Options include:
Applications to set up an audition or shadowing experience will be accepted starting March 1st. Please contact the Family Medicine Residency Coordinator at UPMC Horizon via email at foltzaa@upmc.edu with your completed form and updated CV.
In the meantime, please complete the paperwork on the Medical Student Orientation page.
Shadow opportunities are available for medical students, a max of three (3) days is approved at UPMC Horizon. If you wish to shadow, please complete the paperwork on the Job Shadow page and email to foltzaa@upmc.edu.
All applicants must apply through ERAS® (the Electronic Residency Application Service. Only these applications will be reviewed. No paper applications are accepted. Applications are accepted from the opening of ERAS September 15th until December 20th. We sponsor J1 and H1B visas.
Criteria for selection for an interview:
The final selection is made by the Program Director and Faculty after review of the entire application. We receive greater than 150 applications per residency slot. Therefore, we cannot respond to inquiries regarding your application status. All applications are reviewed.
If you are selected to interview with our program, you will receive an invitation via Thalamus from our Recruitment Coordinator.
Learn more about UPMC Horizon's Family Medicine Residency faculty.
UPMC Horizon and UPMC Jameson Family Medicine Residents 2026 – 2027 (PDF).
* On Wednesday afternoons, if no admissions and patients’ orders for the day placed, PGY1 Resident will attend didactics.
** Once a week, one resident has clinic hours from 1-5pm (On that day, they are expected to complete all orders and notes from their patients by noon and sign out to other resident).
