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Stanford Ambulatory Care Excellence (ACE)

The Stanford Ambulatory Care Excellence (ACE) program is designed to enhance the traditional Internal Medicine residency experience by providing opportunities to gain high-yield clinical skills for practice in the academic outpatient setting. Residents in this program participate in a yearly 2-week ACE rotation that is specially designed to expose them to non-medicine subspecialty clinics as well as Express Care clinic. Additionally, residents benefit from one-on-one mentorship pairings with ACE faculty who have expertise in their specific areas of interest.

Program Elements

  • 2-week ACE rotation (available only to ACE program participants) - opportunities for customization based on areas of interest and need.
    • Examples include: dermatology, sports medicine, podiatry, addiction medicine
  • Guaranteed rotation in Express Care
  • Additional Primary Care Block rotation
  • Formal mentorship by ACE faculty based on area of interest. 
    • Examples include: community health, QI, medical education
  • Quarterly one-on-one meetings to review the mentee's progress towards their Professional, Educational, and Personal goals

Core Faculty

  • Kevin Chang, MD

    Kevin Chang, MD

    Co-Director


  • Ilana Yurkiewicz, MD

    Ilana Yurkiewicz, MD

    Co-Director


  • Maja Artandi, MD

    Maja Artandi, MD


  • Wendy Caceres, MD

    Wendy Caceres, MD


  • Kim Chiang, MD

    Kim Chiang, MD


Resident Co-Founders

  • Doug Halket, MD

    Doug Halket, MD


    Doug was born and raised in New York. He completed his undergraduate studies at MIT where he studied Physics and Economics. He started a career in finance in New York City before realizing that his true calling was in medicine. He was specifically drawn to primary care for its wide breadth of intellectual challenges as well as for the opportunity to develop strong relationships with his patients and his community. He attended medical school at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, where he became involved in the free clinic and worked on research in mobile apps for primary care delivery. He came out to Stanford for residency to be at the forefront of innovation in healthcare delivery. His interests include health policy, ultrasound, and medical education. He is excited to bring more ultrasound teaching to the ACE program and to be involved in new healthcare delivery models and technology implementation in primary care.

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  • Angela Primbas, MD

    Angela Primbas, MD


    Angela was raised by immigrant parents in the midwest. She went to college at Harvard University in Massachusetts and began her career as a middle school teacher in the Boston area. After several years, she decided to attend medical school and was accepted to the University of Washington in Seattle. While in medical school, she developed a passion for primary care, and became interested in developing longitudinal therapeutic relationships with patients and engaging with her community. She also became interested in working with medically underserved populations. Angela was the manager of the Casa Latina Free Clinic which provided health services to day laborers, and helped create a curriculum for medical students on LGBTQ healthcare. After graduating, Angela pursued residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford University where she continued to develop her interest in primary care and underserved populations. She and a co-resident created an LGBTQ health curriculum for residents, and she helped teach LGBTQ health courses to first and second year medical students. Angela completed a year-long course on developing curricula around diversity and inclusion, and assisted with creating a workshop on microaggressions in medicine. She is very excited to help with the Ambulatory Care Excellence program, and is looking forward to creating an excellent primary care experience for Stanford residents.

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Current Residents

  • Steven Doerstling (R3) 
  • Alicia Darwin (R3) 
  • Shannon Esswein (R2) 
  • Heng-Yi Liu (R2) 
  • David Mui (R2) 
  • Evan Mullen (R3) 
  • Bruce Tiu (R3) 
  • Ellen Zhang (R2)  

Rotation Highlights