Good Shepherd Residency Program Accredited

LONGVIEW — The new internal medicine residency program at Good Shepherd Medical Center has been officially approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). This clears the way for the program to admit its first class of residents in July 2012. The three-year residency program is a partnership between Good Shepherd Medical Center (GSMC) and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler (UTHSCT). In March 2010, GSMC announced a partnership with UTHSCT to create the residency program. Since then, the two organizations have worked to put all the program’s various parts together. Now that the program has achieved accreditation, it can begin to recruit residents.

“We are proud to partner with UTHSC on this internal medicine residency program. It will produce expert physicians who are likely to stay in our region and help address the shortage of doctors we face, especially in more rural areas of East Texas,” said Ed Banos, president and chief executive officer of Good Shepherd Health System.

The internal medicine residency program also recently hired a director, Emmanuel Elueze, MD, Ph.D. “We are looking forward to training the next generation of physicians here in East Texas,” said Dr. Elueze, who is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. “We will provide them with quality education and training, while selling them on the beauty and advantages of East Texas. We want them to stay and become doctors in Gregg County and surrounding areas.”

Internal medicine doctors are specialists in the prevention and treatment of adult diseases. And officials say those who graduate from the residency program are needed. Seven of Northeast Texas’ 23 counties currently have a shortage of health-care providers, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Texas will require an additional 40,000 doctors by 2025 to keep up with the state’s growing population, the state demographer has said.

UTHSCT President Dr. Kirk A. Calhoun praised Longview doctors for their support of the residency program. “This would not be possible without the backing of local internal medicine physicians and the larger medical community. Training resident doctors brings a new dimension to medical practice, as they challenge us to continue our learning,” Dr. Calhoun said.

Following the successful completion of four years of medical school, graduating physicians will enter the internal medicine residency program, which lasts three years. Good Shepherd Medical Center will serve as the primary clinical training site for the program and will work with its sister hospitals and other East Texas hospitals as participating sites. As an ACGME-accredited institution, UT Health Science Center is the program sponsor. In addition, a graduate medical education committee composed of members from both facilities provides oversight.