Patients benefit from new Geisinger residency and fellowship training programs

Emergency Medicine program at Geisinger Wyoming Valley will accept residents in 2023

Studies show that graduate medical education programs — residencies and fellowships — are good for patients, good for communities and good for local healthcare. That’s why Geisinger is celebrating the latest expansions in its residency training programs.

In the last two years, Geisinger has added nine new programs in everything from child neurology to vascular surgery. One of them is an emergency medicine residency at Geisinger Wyoming Valley headed by Keith Willner, MD. The program will welcome new residents beginning in August 2023.

The Geisinger Wyoming Valley-based EM Residency Program was established because emergency rooms at that hospital, as well as at Geisinger South Wilkes-Barre, had significant rises in number of cases and acuity.

“Geisinger recognized the potential for Geisinger Wyoming Valley to be an EM training site, the markers being high-acuity patients — patients who are very sick and need to be hospitalized — and patients who have complex diseases and present with two or three concurrent problems,” Dr. Willner said. “Geisinger was also in a good position to start the program because all its ER staff is residency trained and boarded in emergency medicine.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education is looking for enough patients, the right kinds of patients, a rich learning environment and a spirit of scholarship, which means research and other learners. With surgical, internal medicine and pharmacy learners, as well as medical students, Geisinger Wyoming Valley was the right place.”

In the past 24 months, Geisinger has added the following residency and fellowship programs:

Child Neurology, Geisinger Medical Center

Emergency Medicine, Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center

Vascular Surgery – Integrated, Geisinger Medical Center

Infectious Diseases, Geisinger Medical Center

Sleep Medicine, Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center

Colon and Rectal Surgery, Geisinger Medical Center

Orthopaedic Surgery, Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center

Surgical Critical Care, Geisinger Medical Center

Interventional Radiology, Geisinger Medical Center

Geisinger Wyoming Valley was ranked No. 9 on the Fortune/Merative’s 2022 “25 Top Teaching Hospitals” list. The rankings are based on public data sets and core measures and patient satisfaction data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.