Good Shepherd Becomes Teaching Hospital

LONGVIEW – Longview’s Good Shepherd Medical Center officially became a teaching hospital today. The first residence class has arrived and is prepared to get down to work.

Two years ago, Good Shepherd partnered with the University of Texas Health Science Center in Tyler to establish a three-year internal medicine residency program in Longview. Since then, the two organizations have worked vigorously together, and today, Good Shepherd makes history by welcoming its inaugural class of 18 internal medicine residents.

The program attracted more than 1,200 applicants from 35 medical schools from across the nation and around the world. “We were quite impressed with the response to our program,” said Emmanuel Elueze, MD, Program Director for Good Shepherd Medical Center’s Internal Medicine Residency Program. “With its national reputation, being in partnership with the UT system has helped a great deal.” From October 2011 to January 2012, the Good Shepherd Graduate Medical Education program interviewed around 180 candidates for the available 18 first-year positions in the program. Candidates were interviewed by medical staff and residency program administration, provided tours of the Longview area Medical Center, its state-of-the-art simulation center and the Institute for Healthy Living.

After completion of the three-year internal medicine residency program, the program participants are board-eligible in internal medicine and can begin practicing hospital medicine or outpatient primary care medicine. Others may choose to further their careers by seeking a fellowship in a subspecialty of internal medicine, such as cardiology, gastroenterology, nephrology, infectious disease and geriatric medicine among countless others.