Lehigh Valley Health Network Program

Program Identity & Fit

LVHN's Internal Medicine Residency is a large community-academic hybrid program anchored at the 850+ bed Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest, a major regional referral and tertiary care center serving urban Allentown/Bethlehem and surrounding rural Pocono and coal-region communities, and functioning as a University of South Florida clinical campus. The program's defining structural feature is its 4:1 scheduling model with dedicated ECLS teaching-team and traditional hospitalist (HMS) inpatient services, protected ambulatory immersion weeks at Valley Health Partners, and an explicit junior-attending experience for senior residents, all designed to build graduated autonomy and systems-based practice fluency. Eight in-house fellowships (cardiology, GI, hem/onc, nephrology, pulm/crit care, endocrine, rheum, palliative care) alongside a strong procedural and POCUS curriculum indicate fellowship subspecialization is a common and supported pathway, while the ambulatory curriculum's explicit goal of preparing residents "to thrive in primary care - particularly within underserved settings" signals a parallel primary care/community mission. With roughly a quarter of graduates staying on as faculty colleagues, the program appears to value residents who invest in long-term relationships with faculty and the local health system.