department of medicine

Internal Medicine Residency Program

Training Sites

Temple University Hospital has been a fixture in its North Philadelphia neighborhood for over 100 years. Originally the Samaritan Hospital, it was founded by Reverend Russell Conwell, the founder of Temple University, in 1892 as a place to provide care to the inhabitants of the area. The School of Medicine was founded in 1901 as a night school to permit people who wished to study medicine but needed to maintain full-time employment to get a medical degree.

Since then, Temple has developed and evolved with the times to become a full-service medical center with facilities on this campus for the education of doctors, nurses, dentist, pharmacist and other health professionals. Temple University Hospital is located on the Health Sciences Center campus in the Nicetown-Tioga section of North Philadelphia. This 746-bed hospital has comprehensive medical, surgical, pediatric, ambulatory and emergency services, and is the major clinical resource for the Internal Medicine Residency Program for the Temple University School of Medicine. It also serves as the major clinical resource for several other health care-related professional and technical schools situated on this campus. The current hospital facility was dedicated in 1986 and is an attractive, well-maintained state-of-the-art facility.

A rotation for residents at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, a 100-bed specialty hospital for the care of patients with neoplastic disease, is included in the program. Fox Chase Cancer Center has the country's first charter as a cancer hospital and is located on a verdant campus in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia, right on the borderline with Montgomery County. It is one of 20 comprehensive cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute. It is staffed by academic physicians with full Temple University faculty appointments.

Each year, these hospitals admit more than 6,000 patients to the medical services providing a combined average daily census of 350 patients whose primary care is the responsibility of the medical service teams. These inpatients, together with 20,000 medical outpatients and 47,000 annual visits to Temple University Hospital's active emergency room, provide a wealth of patient material for excellent teaching-learning experiences.

The Temple University Health System also includes Jeanes Hospital and TUH Episcopal Campus (the clinical campus for the Department of Psychiatry). Formal rotations are not required at these hospitals but residents have opportunities to rotate with physicians at these sites if they desire. In addition, Temple 2nd and 3rd year residents staff a medical inpatient service at the nearby Abington Memorial Hospital. This service is led by one of the Temple chief residents and provides an opportunity to learn in an environment that differs from that found at the main Temple University Hospital.

As Temple enters the 21st century, there are new facilities to support its mission. In November 2005, Temple opened an Ambulatory Care Center (shown above) on the northeast corner of the main hospital facility. This center contains expanded space for the emergency room and space for a cancer center, GI procedure facilities, surgery clinics, etc.