Program Director Welcome Letter
Welcome to the Oklahoma State University Internal Medicine Residency Program in Tulsa,
Oklahoma!
It is my pleasure as Program Director to introduce you to what our program has to offer. As most things, the best predictor of the future is the past.
Our program was founded in 1954 and has graduated more than 200 residents. Our residents
have gone on to pursue every imaginable career that is rooted in the foundation of
a strong internal medicine backbone. This includes outpatient medicine, hospital-based
medicine and fellowships in cardiology, nephrology, infectious disease, gastroenterology,
pulmonary/critical care, rheumatology, hematology/oncology, endocrine and palliative
care. Our outpatient doctors and hospitalists line the fabric of our city and are
coveted by all the major health systems in our area.
The building of our reputation is a simple story really. Every individual who touches
our program is vetted thoroughly. That implementation of culture involves our faculty,
as well as our residents. We believe that regardless of the type of technology, or
state of the art facility a program might have, if you don’t have the people who believe
that training physicians is a way of a life... a career... then all the fancy equipment
in the world doesn’t matter. And although we utilize numerous advanced training modalities,
and are on the brink of opening a state of the art simulation center, we still believe
in teaching at the bedside. We believe in the art of the physical exam, and the sanctity
of learning from our patients.
At OSU, our patient population is widely diverse. We serve as a tertiary care center and the referrals into our system allow our residents to see almost every imaginable pathology. In addition to the high number of referrals from our rural communities, we also benefit from serving the Ryan White HIV Clinic as a portion of our continuity clinic. This exposes our residents to approximately 1,000 HIV patients in Northeastern Oklahoma and gives them an advantage over others after they complete their residency. In addition to the HIV population, our residents also serve our veterans at the Muskogee VA. Between the VA experience and our Intensive Care Unit at OSU Medical Center, our residents quickly become procedurally adept and are able to train other residents on central venous catheters, arterial lines, intubations, bone marrow biopsies, lumbar punctures, thoracentesis and paracentesis by the completion of their residency.
One last thought I would like to leave you with is that our program's success is measured by the success of our residents. Our wins and losses are shared. That feeling permeates our residency because at the end of the day we are family.
Thank you for your consideration of our program, and if there are any other questions we can answer for you that are not answered by our website, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Justin Chronister, D.O.
Program Director