Penn State Milton S Hershey Medical Center Program

Program Identity & Fit

Penn State Hershey's PM&R residency is a university-based, academic program embedded in a large regional health system, drawing clinical experience from a Level 1 trauma center, a CARF-accredited freestanding rehabilitation hospital, a VA medical center, and two community hospitals, giving trainees exposure across the acuity spectrum from tertiary inpatient rehabilitation to community-based outpatient care. The curriculum is procedurally rich, with a 12-month longitudinal musculoskeletal ultrasound curriculum, an annual 5-week cadaver course, and routine exposure to botulinum toxin injections, electrodiagnostic studies, and fluoroscopic-guided procedures, indicating an emphasis on hands-on technical competency alongside classic inpatient rehabilitation training. A longitudinal research curriculum with dedicated research time and in-house fellowships in traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury (plus an anesthesia-based pain fellowship) signal a program built to feed subspecialty pipelines while still producing well-rounded generalist physiatrists. The program values well-rounded clinical exposure across diverse practice settings, procedural facility, and engagement in scholarly activity and quality improvement over narrow specialization.