Penn State Milton S Hershey Medical Center Program

Program Identity & Fit

Penn State Hershey's Diagnostic Radiology Residency is a four-year, single-site academic program (six residents per year) embedded in a Level 1 trauma center, Children's Hospital, and Cancer Institute serving a large semi-rural/regional catchment area, giving residents high-volume, high-acuity exposure without the fragmentation of multi-site rotations. The program explicitly structures curriculum around educational needs rather than service demands, and the College of Medicine carries substantial institutional research funding, though the residency itself frames research as a component of a well-rounded academic environment rather than a mandated resident output. Career orientation is fellowship-driven almost universally, with recent graduates matching into subspecialty fellowships at top-tier academic centers (Hopkins, UCSF, Stanford, Mayo, and others). The program explicitly states it selects for cultural fit, kindness, humility, self-motivation, and perseverance over pure academic pedigree, and emphasizes a supportive, low-attrition, collegial training culture in a lower-cost-of-living setting.