Mission

The Keesler Internal Medicine Residency mission is to produce graduates that are compassionate, competent, ethical, and professional, ready to serve independently as physicians and Air Force officers, fully dedicated to their patients, with the drive to pursue lifelong learning.

Vision

We seek to create physician leaders and innovators of tomorrow who can balance the science of evidence-based medicine and the art of individualized care. By providing the strongest academic and clinical training, we strive to foster enduring scholarship, physician wellness and dedication to our patients and communities.

Aims

• Recruit diverse, talented and compassionate physicians.
• Provide the full breadth of Internal Medicine training and prepare residents to succeed in the next phase of their careers.
• Support and promote academic excellence through mentorship, resources and access to cutting edge medical technology and research centers.
• Allow our trainees to develop additional expertise in leadership, quality improvement, health systems science, global health, research, advocacy, and medical education to meet their ultimate career goals.
• Foster a supportive and engaging learning environment for students, residents and faculty.
• Foster a culture supporting diversity and equity for residents, faculty, patients and our community.
• Closely collaborate with our current residents and extensive alumni base to adapt and improve our training program, aiming to best equip residents for future practice.

The program has excellent didactics to include morning report (a lecture by the chief resident highlighting interesting cases) and noon conference. Noon conference occurs most weekdays and is led by either a subspecialist or a staff internist. Topics include high yield board material, practical approaches to common medical ailments, evidence based medicine discussions, and more.

Residents are authorized three elective months in the PGY-2 year and four months in the PGY-3 year.

• Allergy/Immunology
• Anesthesiology
• Cardiac Care Unit
• Cardiology
• Dermatology
• Emergency Medicine
• Endocrinology
• Gastroenterology
• Hematology/Oncology
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical ICU
• Nephrology
• Ophthalmology
• Orthopaedics
• Otolaryngology
• Pulmonary Medicine
• Radiology
• Rheumatology
• Ultrasound (Point-of-Care)
• Urology

• Every four day call
• Call Days 6 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.
• Non-call Days 6 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Keesler Internal Medicine Residency has designed a military specific curriculum to ensure that each graduate is ready and able to work worldwide in any setting. Our curriculum focuses on readiness tools and skills ensuring the highest level of proficiency in procedures and medical care; our graduates complete far more than the required numbers of procedures and train in high acuity ICU settings. We augment our real world patient care experiences with twice monthly simulation lab training. Our didactic curriculum covers deployment medicine, tropical medicine, as well as military medicine topics such as PME, promotion processes, etc...

All residents are required to maintain Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advance Life Support (ALS) certification throughout residency. Many residents choose to become instructors in these courses.

Keesler Medical Center has a state-of-the-art simulation center to help trainees and faculty practice skills. Our program incorporates the simulation center multiples times each month as we train for procedures, critical care scenarios and codes.

Keesler is the ideal place to learn leadership! Your opportunity to teach and learn start immediately on the wards with medical students and then grow as you progress in training. We have opportunities to lead small groups in quality improvement projects, to serve on residency committees, and to serve as Chief of Residents.

Participating in scholarly activity is expected and required during your residency at Keesler Medical Center. We have knowledgeable faculty to help mentor research projects and experts (such as statisticians) on site to assist. Our program provides financial support for residents to present at local and national meetings. We have a strong record of award winning presentations!

Our program is dedicated to ongoing process improvement and teaching our learners how to identify issues, problem solve, and test solutions. Our graduates participate in both program wide and individual quality improvement projects during their training. Keesler also has an award winning inpatient patient safety program where resident participate in risk analysis, problem-solving processes, and implementation.

Our program produces high quality physicians and officers- we incorporate military specific professional development training into your time at Keesler Medical Center so you are prepared after graduation. Our faculty mentorship and financial assistance ensures our graduates have a strong CV for application to fellowship training and/or prepared for an assignment as a General Internist.

• Keesler Medical Center, Biloxi Mississippi
• Gulfport Memorial Hospital, Gulfport Mississippi
• Singing River Hospital, Ocean Springs Mississippi
• University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson Mississippi
• Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl Germany

We welcome any fourth year medical students to do a rotation with our team! Rotations are typically four weeks long but we can accommodate any length requested. Most learners choose to do inpatient ward medicine but options include any clinic based elective.

Interviews can be arranged by contacting the program administrators.

Program graduates take the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Certifying Examination. This exam is offered annually in August. All Internal Medicine physicians who have met the standards for Board Certification in general internal medicine are considered Board Eligible for a period of seven years. During this period of board eligibility, the candidate may apply for the certifying examination in internal medicine. To be eligible to take this exam, graduates must complete all pre-requisites required by the American Board of Internal Medicine by August 31st.

We ask our residents to teach starting at day one of training; our ward teams have medical students year round and all levels are engaged in teaching. Our resident practice their large group teaching by giving formal presentations such as “Case of the Year” as interns, Morbidity and Mortality as PGY2s, and Grand Rounds as PGY3s. We also do Evidence Based Medicine lectures series and Code Blue simulation series taught exclusively by residents.

• Cardiology
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology
• Gastroenterology
• Geriatric Medicine
• Hematology/Oncology
• Infectious Disease
• Interventional Cardiology
• Nephrology
• Neurology
• Pulmonary/Critical Care
• Rheumatology

Our program has a formal mentorship program- each resident is assigned to a faculty mentor to work closely with over the three-year residency. We try to match each pair based on personal and professional goals and interests. While we do formally assign mentors, we also encourage our residents to seek our many mentors to get differing perspectives.

• Our program believes that resident well-being and work life balance help create a strong learning environment. We tailor our schedule to help learners balance the challenges of training with ensuring they have sufficient time off.
• We have a wide range of resources on site to support health and well-being including peer support programs, behavioral health services, chaplain services, an Ombudsman program, and counseling services.
• We also take one day per month as “Wellness Day”- no didactics are performed and fun group activities are done instead. Examples include seasonal outings, bowling, etc...