The Department of Emergency Medicine was established as a full academic department at the Medical Center in July, 2000. The residency program received accreditation in 2003, enrolled its first class of residents in 2004, and has been fully accredited since 2006. The volume of patients seen in the Emergency Department, the forty accredited residency and fellowship programs currently in existence in the institution, and the desire of the Emergency Medicine Faculty to teach create a well-rounded residency experience. The central Pennsylvania regional census growth and the availability of an expanding Department of Emergency Medicine within a level-one trauma center, quaternary medical center facilitated the demand for an independent residency at the Medical Center.
The Penn State Hershey Emergency Medicine residency program enrolls 8 residents per year, following a PGY-1, 2,3 format. Rotations will be conducted at the Penn State Milton S Hershey Medical Center, a large academic teaching hospital with an emergency department seeing more than 50,000 patients per year. To enhance the resident experience, Pinnacle Health-Harrisburg Hospital serves as an urban clinical participating institution which is located 12 miles from the Medical Center. The patient population, workflow and community hospital experience exposes the emergency medicine residents to an emergency medicine experience distinctly different from that at the Medical Center. The more challenging socio-economic status of the location, community hospital setting, indigent patient population and educational experience in the Harrisburg Hospital Emergency Department creates an ideal partner for the Penn State Hershey Emergency Medicine Residency.
The curriculum is designed to expose residents to the full range of topics, experiences, technical procedures and concepts relevant to emergency medicine. In addition to preparing residents for emergency medicine practice, our curriculum also emphasizes acquisition of basic skills in assessing the medical literature, understanding concepts in clinical epidemiology and appreciating the role of emergency physicians in the formulation and implementation of health care policy.
The last week in June is hospital orientation which includes, among other things, ATLS and ACLS provider certification. July is departmental orientation and includes an intensive didactic and laboratory experience for the new intern.
For more information regarding our residency program, please click here to view our online video.
