Program Overview
Mission
The faculty at Penn State Hershey Medicine are dedicated to educating and training superior physicians in general internal medicine and medical subspecialties. The residency program emphasizes the scientific basis and humanistic concerns necessary to achieve this goal. The practice of medicine, both in the community and in an academic setting, remains an art with a scientific base. The profession remains one of service to and education of our patients.
Broad Exposure And Extensive One-On-One Instruction
The teaching commitment of our full-time faculty leads to extensive resident-faculty interaction during the period of training. We believe this is a major strength of our program. The Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Lancaster General Hospital experiences substantially broaden the patient base, clinical exposure, and faculty mentors available to our resident physicians.
Residents will receive ongoing multi-source evaluations and appropriate feedback throughout their residency training. Faculty are strongly encouraged to provide constructive feedback to resident physicians during and at the end of each rotation. The program directors meet with each resident individually at least twice yearly to review evaluations and progress. The program director and associate directors meet with all residents as a group at least monthly to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern. We believe these actions create an atmosphere of mutual trust and concern as well as encourage free exchange of information and ideas about the program and the department.
Residents will receive ongoing multi-source evaluations and appropriate feedback throughout their residency training. Faculty are strongly encouraged to provide constructive feedback to resident physicians during and at the end of each rotation. The program directors meet with each resident individually at least twice yearly to review evaluations and progress. The program director and associate directors meet with all residents as a group at least monthly to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern. We believe these actions create an atmosphere of mutual trust and concern as well as encourage free exchange of information and ideas about the program and the department.
Penn State Internal Medicine Residency Alumni
Our resident both hail from and transition to many prestigious academic positions. Our alumni have entered subspecialty fellowship training, general internal medicine practice, the U.S. Public Health Service or military service, as well as other professional endeavors. Several now hold positions in academic medicine. We believe our residents are highly competitive for the best fellowship programs as demonstrated by our current graduates.
Systems That Work
Residents will operate in both an inpatient and outpatient sphere during their training. The inpatient ward services are comprised of three teaching general medicine services as well as various admitting subspecialty services (cardiology, hematology, gastroenterology, etc.). Residents will have the opportunity to both serve and learn while on service. The cap of 14 patients on the teaching services ensures that adequate time will be devoted to bedside teaching or formal didactics. Furthermore, Penn State-Hershey has transitioned to a paperless chart, streamlining the data gathering and documenting ability of all practitioners. With over 6000 yearly admissions to the medicine or medicine subspecialty services, there is ample opportunity for teaching on a daily basis.
Dedication to education continues in the outpatient realm where the medicine outpatient department accommodates the office practice of our faculty and resident physicians. There are approximately 83,000 visits per year (12,000 new patients) of which approximately 3,000 visits per year are to resident physicians. Each categorical resident physician spends at least one-half day per week in outpatient practice, supervised by a member of the division of general internal medicine. Block ambulatory months are an integral part of the categorical PGY1 and PGY3 curriculum. Faculty supervisors and resident physicians are paired together in the same outpatient session as much as possible during each year to maximize continuity of care and supervision.
Categorical internal medicine resident physicians will develop a representative general internal medicine practice, follow their patients over time, and communicate efficiently and effectively with patients and referring physicians. Resident physicians also see representative outpatients during subspecialty rotations. Those resident physicians interested in primary care internal medicine may use elective time in the second and third years to focus and refine their primary care skills and fund of knowledge.