LEWISTON – Central Maine Medical Center’s Family Practice Residency Program recognized six third-year family practice residents at recent commencement exercises.

Family practitioners Drs. Shannon Kenney, Peter Kulawiec, James Ostrander, Karen Roberts, Ira Robles and Flora Sadri were presented their diplomas by Dr. Edmund Claxton, residency program director.

Several awards were made during the ceremony, including the Dr. Bruce Johnson Residency Teacher of the Year Award, which was presented to CMMC radiologist Dr. John Bennett. The award is voted by the graduating senior residents and honors the physician who made the most outstanding contribution to their family practice residency education.

A number of others were honored by the graduating class, including Katherine Brunjes and Maureen Fournier, CMMC medical librarians; CMMC pharmacists Jennifer Civiello and Steve Dufault; Drs. Sam DiCapua, Trisha Gushue and Amy Kustra, family physicians who supervised the residents at the Family Practice Center; Jennifer Fish, a social worker at the Family Practice Center; the L-A Internal Medicine group, Drs. Ken Brodsky, Lise Cloutier, Gary Hatfield and Paul Raczynski; and Dr. Marc Perlman, medical director of CMMC Neonatal Intermediate Care Unit.

Dr. Shannon Kenney, a graduating resident, was presented the American Academy of Family Practice Resident Physician of the Year award, an honor bestowed by the residency faculty. Kenney will join Martin’s Point Family Practice in Brunswick.

Kulawiec will join his wife in family practice medicine overseas in Norway, and Ostrander will join an Auburn family practice.

Roberts will join the Fish River Health Center in Eagle Lake, while Robles will move to Michigan to practice medicine in Ann Arbor.

Sadri will enter her family medicine practice at the Community Health Center of Franklin County in Turner Falls, Mass.

CMMC created the Family Medicine Residency Program in 1978 to provide trained family doctors to the Lewiston-Auburn area and to other regions of Maine.

Attending this year’s CMMC Family Practice Residency Program graduation ceremony were faculty, residents and staff, as well as members of the CMMC medical staff, the families and special invited guests of graduating residents.

Shannon Banks, CMMC’s vice president for medical affairs, commended the graduates on their contributions to CMMC’s quality of patient care and wished them well on their career paths.

Area family practitioner Dr. Douglas Ferrago gave the commencement address, “Surviving in the real world of medicine.”