Louisiana State University School of Medicine Program

Program Identity & Fit

LSU's New Orleans Internal Medicine residency is a university-based academic program that trains residents across three distinct clinical environments—a safety-net public hospital (University Medical Center) serving underinsured and underserved patients, and two private/insured settings (Touro Infirmary and Ochsner Kenner)—giving residents a socioeconomically bimodal patient exposure rather than a single institutional identity. The program is built around three named optional tracks (Hospitalist, Primary Care, and an HIV/Infectious Disease track with dedicated inpatient/outpatient exposure to HIV and AIDS management), reflecting an explicit effort to individualize training toward hospital medicine, ambulatory primary care, or ID/HIV subspecialization. Scholarly activity is structured and heavily promoted (mandatory QI projects, resident case reports in the Journal of the Louisiana State Medical Society, funded conference travel, and consistent multi-year output at SSCI, ACP, ACG, ATS and ACR meetings) though positioned as a supportive/enrichment infrastructure rather than a hypothesis-driven research mission. Faculty culture emphasizes graduated autonomy, protected didactic time, and mentorship toward diverse outcomes—hospitalist, primary care, academic medicine, or fellowship—rather than funneling residents toward a single career path.