Recent refugee populations
Sioux Falls is home to immigrant communities from the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Himalayas — a patient panel most rural-focused programs never encounter.
Global Health Experience
Train for the patients you'll actually see — wherever you practice.
Modern travel and immigration mean every family physician needs global-health competence. SFFMR builds it into the program — through our refugee panel, our faculty's international experience, and elective rotations abroad.
Faculty expertise
Faculty with clinical experience on every continent
Program faculty have practiced medicine across every continent and in domestic wilderness settings. Their published work spans refugee health, travel medicine, tropical infectious diseases, disaster response, nutrition, and health systems.
"When I moved to Asia after completing residency… I felt prepared for all of the variety of experiences and situations I found myself in" — teaching at a family medicine residency in China and doing anti-trafficking work in Hong Kong.
Local training resources
You don't have to leave Sioux Falls to start
One of the program's quiet advantages: Sioux Falls has a refugee-resettlement community that most family medicine programs in the region don't see. Cross-cultural medicine is part of the daily schedule, not an elective bolt-on.
New refugee exams
Falls Community Health, our FQHC partner, performs new-refugee intake exams. Residents rotate through these visits as part of the standard schedule.
Cross-cultural care
Every clinic encounter is an opportunity to practice culturally responsive medicine. Faculty model and teach the craft of communicating across language, religion, and trauma history.
Tropical disease exposure
You will see diseases here you would otherwise only read about — TB, parasitic infections, post-displacement syndromes — through the immigrant and refugee panel.
Maternity-heavy training
A strong OB program means international rotation sites trust Sioux Falls residents with high-acuity maternity care from day one of an away rotation.
International travel clinic
Residents help staff the international travel clinic — pre-travel counseling, vaccines, and prophylaxis for departing patients.
Beyond Sioux Falls
International rotations + adjacent experiences
Required rural rotation
Limited-resource practice in Milbank, Mobridge, Madison, Parkston, Winner — the closest domestic analog to working in a constrained international setting.
Elective rotations abroad
Use elective weeks for international placements. We've supported residents in Asia, Africa, and Central America.
Curious how global health fits your training plan?
Rotate with us.
A medical-student rotation is the easiest way to talk through global health pathways with our faculty. Several current residents matched specifically for our refugee-health exposure.