Valley Hospital Celebrates Graduate Medical Education in June
White Coat Ceremony Welcomes New Residents, Fellows
On June 28, 2018, Valley Hospital welcomed a new class of 24 medical residents and four fellows with a traditional white coat ceremony. The white coat ceremony is considered a rite of passage in the journey toward becoming a physician. It marks the medical student’s transition from the study of preclinical health sciences to clinical service. As part of the ceremony, the short white coats of a medical student are discarded and the long white coats of a physician are officially presented. The long white coat is the symbol of physician clinical service.
Since 2006, Valley Hospital has offered physician residencies and fellowships for physicians-in-training after they complete medical school, known as graduate medical education. Valley Hospital has watched its physician graduates open or join private practices, work as hospitalists, continue their medical training with the military or enter fellowships for further specialized training.
Valley Hospital offers residency programs in family medicine, internal medicine, neurology and orthopedic surgery, along with fellowships in gastroenterology and pulmonary/critical care medicine.
“A residency program not only trains new physicians, but it introduces them to their network of referring physicians and future patients,” said Elaine Glaser, CEO of Valley Hospital. “A 2017 report from the American Association of Medical Colleges showed that 54.5 percent of physicians who completed residency training from 2007 through 2016 are practicing in the state where they completed their residency program.* That’s an important statistic as the local healthcare community works to recruit and retain physicians to meet Southern Nevada’s growing demand for providers.”
Statistics from Valley Hospital’s graduating class include:
- Overall, 60 percent of Valley Hospital’s graduating residents and fellows will remain in Las Vegas to work in private practice, as hospitalists, in outpatient clinics and with local fellowship opportunities at Valley Hospital (gastroenterology or pulmonary/critical care) and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Medicine Sports Medicine Fellowship.
- Two of four graduating Fellows (50 percent) are entering private practice in Las Vegas with specialties in gastroenterology or pulmonary/critical care.
- Nearly 40 percent of the graduating residents have been accepted into fellowship programs.
With its second graduating class, the orthopedic surgery residency maintains its 100 percent fellowship acceptance rate with graduates being accepted at the University of Pennsylvania Orthopaedic Spine Surgery Fellowship, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Fellowship, Beacon Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation, Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Other Valley Hospital residents have been accepted to out-of-state fellowship programs in:
- Infectious Diseases Fellowship, University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Memphis, Tennessee
- Kaiser Permanente Southern California Nephrology Fellowship, Los Angeles, California
- Banner University Medical Center Phoenix Endocrinology & Metabolism Fellowship, Phoenix, Arizona
“I’m proud that our program has developed outstanding physicians who have been accepted to well-known fellowships,” said Glaser. “It speaks to the quality of our physician leadership, faculty and program.”
Graduate Medical Education at Valley Hospital
Learn more about graduate medical education at Valley Hospital >