Division of General Internal Medicine

Education in General Internal Medicine

With internationally recognized medical educators, the Division of General Internal Medicine is deeply committed to the education of students, residents, fellows, faculty and community members. Division faculty have integral leadership and teaching roles in the Penn State Internal Medicine Clerkship, Internal Medicine Residency Program and in the Woodward Center for Excellence in Health Professions Education.

Under the leadership of Dr. Eliana Hempel, the IM-APPS (Internal Medicine Accelerated Program at Penn State) allows medical students committed to primary care to participate in an accelerated medical school training program, thus graduating one year earlier to provide outstanding primary care services to central Pennsylvania.

Division members have been pioneers in the development of what is now recognized as the fourth pillar of medical education: health systems science. Led by Dr. Jed Gonzalo, the Penn State College of Medicine has been funded by prestigious grants from the American Medical Association to deliver innovative curriculum on how health care is delivered and how to improve the quality of health care for patients and populations.

The Division of General Internal Medicine is home to two fellowship programs. Under the direction of Dr. Jennifer McCall-Hosenfeld, the General Internal Medicine Fellowship trains internists seeking careers in academic general internal medicine in research and/or medical education. The ACGME-accredited Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship, led by fellowship director Dr. Susan Glod, trains physicians to provide high-quality care for patients with life-altering illness.

Research in General Internal Medicine

Division of General Internal Medicine faculty and staff are actively engaged in innovative research, supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Centers for Disease Control, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and other federal and non-federal sponsors. Areas of expertise include behavioral medicine, health services research, physical activity interventions, chronic disease management with a focus on diabetes, electronic health record and claims data-based research, end-of-life care, family planning and women’s health, medical education research, humanities in medicine, and health systems science. In Fiscal Year 2021, the division had nearly $22 million in research funding and faculty contributed more than 75 peer-reviewed publications.

Division faculty are integral to the research mission at the Penn State College of Medicine, with leadership roles in the Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute, the Center for Women’s Health Research and the Penn State Consortium on Substance Use and Addiction.

Division researchers are actively engaged in research beyond Penn State as well. Exemplars include the PCORNet PaTH Network, part of PCORI’s national network of institutions collaborating to utilize the electronic health record for innovative research, and Project ECHO, where Penn State researchers lead the national Impact Collaborative for the over 220 institutions nationally engaged in the ECHO movement.

Clinical Care in General Internal Medicine

The Division of General Internal Medicine provides compassionate, patient-centered primary care and palliative care services for adult patients. The division’s primary care practice site, Cocoa Outpatient Center, is located at 1150 Cocoa Avenue in Hershey, where physicians deliver comprehensive primary care for adults, including preventive health services, chronic disease management and acute care needs. Additional services include the addiction medicine clinic, procedure clinic, medical consultation clinic and acute respiratory clinic.

The section of Palliative Medicine, led by Dr. Kristina Newport, is an interdisciplinary program with board-certified palliative medicine physicians, advance practice clinicians, social work, spiritual care and nursing, providing consultative palliative care to both outpatients and hospitalized patients.

In addition to adult primary care and palliative medicine, many Division of General Internal Medicine faculty also provide patient care services in the areas of hospital medicine, geriatric medicine, addiction medicine and perioperative medicine.