It’s a return to Modesto for 2 resident physicians in training at local hospital
Anna Fuller took a moment to assess the first days of her internal medicine residency at Memorial Medical Center in Modesto.
“I like all my co-residents so far,” Fuller said. “The program coordinator is helpful and I’m getting perceptions it will be a supportive, collegial atmosphere. That was what I was looking for.”
Sutter Health of Sacramento launched internal and family medicine residency programs at the Modesto hospital this month, recognizing a growing demand for medical services coupled with a worsening shortage of physicians in Stanislaus County.
Fuller is one of 19 resident physicians in the first internal medicine cohort. Rajman Randhawa, another resident with Modesto ties, began the same program this week.
Fuller was born at Memorial Medical Center. Her teenage birth parents wanted her to have a good home, so she was raised by her adoptive family in the Bay Area.
Graduating from UC Berkeley with a math degree, Fuller worked as a software quality assurance engineer. She decided to pursue medicine after her then 30-year-old husband suffered a stroke in 2016. Her husband’s brother also had a stroke that same year.
Fuller said the doctors who cared for her husband were impressive, and she also pondered why strokes are more common today among younger adults.
Fuller went to medical school in Las Cruces, N.M., and was attracted to the new residency in Modesto. Fuller met her birth family at 17 and thought a residency program near them would be fun.
“I accepted a rotation in Modesto back in October,” Fuller said. “The doctors were knowledgeable and enthusiastic about teaching. I felt I learned a ton while I was here.”
Memorial Medical Center received national accreditation for the residency tracks in April 2024. The Sutter programs include training in the 419-bed hospital and its Level II trauma center. Resident physicians also will work with Gould Medical Group doctors providing care in clinics.
Sutter also launched a family medicine residency with 13 participants, and seven additional residents will spend one year in the internal medicine training.
Residents will work five days a week in outpatient clinics and up to six days a week on hospital floors. During the three-year program, Fuller said she expects to spend time in about every hospital department, including cardiology and intensive care.
She said she is seriously considering staying in Modesto to practice, as a happy medium between the large city and the rural experience she had in New Mexico. She has not decided her next step in medical training upon completing the internal medicine program.
“I like the hospital,” Fuller said. “I’m mostly looking forward to learning more here and figuring out what I like. I will see what fits and what I am passionate about.”
Her fellow resident Randhawa also is considering a medical career in Modesto. “I like the Central Valley,” Randhawa said. “We have this population boom and more and more people are moving here.”
He said his goal is helping to meet the medical needs of that diverse population, but it may depend on what hospitals are hiring when training is completed.
Randhawa, a Hayward native whose family moved to Modesto, was in the first graduating class at Gregori High School in 2013. He studied environmental science at UCLA and worked as a tree forester for a short time. An earlier interest in medicine was rekindled when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, he said.
Impressed by mother’s care team
Randhawa moved back home and assisted his mother with appointments and treatments. He was intrigued by the team work of health providers, nurses and medical assistants who cared for her. “I wanted to be part of a system that makes such an impactful change in people’s lives,” he said.
Randhawa took classes to meet medical school requirements and attended Touro University in Vallejo. He said his preferences for residency programs were all in the Central Valley.
“I did like the Sutter Modesto residency,” he said. “It is a newer program but they are really putting resources and effort into welcoming us and making sure we have good training.”
The first week, the resident physicians were learning Sutter’s electronic records system so they’re ready to start participating in patient exams. Randhawa will start his training in endocrinology.
Fuller said her initial training will be rural medicine in Oakdale. As her journey-back-to-Modesto story continues, Fuller is one resident who will be a hospital patient later this year.
In November, she expects to give birth to her first child at Memorial.
This story was originally published June 20, 2025 at 10:25 AM.
