Lehigh Valley Health Network Allentown Program

Program Identity & Fit

LVHN's Family Medicine Residency is a community-based program embedded within one of Pennsylvania's largest teaching hospitals, built on a longitudinal (rather than block) curriculum that centers residents in continuity care sites from day one alongside behavioral medicine integration and team-based practice improvement work. The program's structure emphasizes population health, chronic disease management, and full-spectrum outpatient generalism, with distinctive named tracks (addiction medicine, geriatrics, leadership, lifestyle/obesity medicine, maternity care, sports medicine, street medicine) allowing residents to develop focused expertise while remaining broadly trained family physicians. A required scholarly activity for all residents signals that research/QI skills are expected but not the program's central identity, and the street medicine collaboration with Valley Health Partners reflects genuine institutional commitment to underserved, unstably housed populations. The dual MD/DO composition (roughly half and half) with Osteopathic Recognition and emphasis on relationship-centered, competency-based, resident-driven learning suggests the program values self-directed learners drawn to continuity, community integration, and holistic patient relationships over high-acuity procedural volume.