Lakeland Regional Health Program

Program Identity & Fit

Lakeland Regional Health's Transitional Year is a newly established program at a large 910-bed community-based tertiary center in Central Florida, drawing a diverse, high-volume patient population through one of the nation's busiest single-site emergency departments and a Level II trauma center. The curriculum is deliberately individualized, allowing residents to tailor electives across 35+ specialties toward their ultimate categorical field, with no 24-hour call and structured blocks in IM, EM, MICU, palliative care, and outpatient/urgent care. As a new academic institution with minimal competition from other trainee cohorts, the program emphasizes direct hands-on clinical exposure, mandates at least one scholarly project presented at an internal research symposium, and provides dedicated mentorship and Step 3/Level 3 exam preparation embedded in didactics. The program explicitly supports residents heading toward diverse next steps, including re-entry into categorical Match processes, signaling a design built around flexibility and individualized career trajectories rather than a single fixed pathway.