St. Francis Medical Center Program

Program Identity & Fit

St. Francis Medical Center's Internal Medicine Residency is a new, faith-rooted, community-based program in Monroe, Louisiana, operating within a 325-bed teaching hospital that serves as northeast Louisiana's largest healthcare provider and safety-net referral center for an underserved regional population. The curriculum is built around individualized learning plans, longitudinal mentorship, and a heavy elective load (up to 14 weeks in PGY3) rather than subspecialty-heavy tertiary training, with research limited to a mandatory quality-improvement project and manuscript rather than a hypothesis-driven research track. The program explicitly states many graduates go on to practice locally, reflecting a mission oriented toward producing community physicians who serve health-disparity-affected populations rather than academic subspecialists. Distinctive features include Franciscan mission-based identity, structured DEI councils with resident representation, board-coaching support tied to ITE performance, and a service/volunteerism ethos woven into resident life.