Meet Our Graduates

University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, 1998
Christ Hospital Internal Medicine Residency, 2002
Brown University Hematology/Oncology Fellowship, 2005

Christ Hospital is an excellent place to do your internal medicine residency.  The faculty is truly committed to all aspects of resident education  - they are involved because they truly WANT to be involved and this is easily demonstrated by the multiple one on one interactions the residents have with the faculty.  You will be learning from leaders in their respective fields – participating in cutting edge therapy and technology as it applies to patient care.  I had a particular interest in hem/onc during the course of my residency.  Electives in this field were easy to secure and the faculty went out of their way to assist me in the application process for fellowship.  Christ prepared me well for fellowship. 

As you go about interviewing for residency positions in your fourth year of medical school, try to think about where you want to be from a professional perspective four years from now – wherever and whatever it is, I am sure that the faculty and staff associated with Christ will help you attain these goals.

John Hergenrother, M.D.

Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine, 1997
Christ Hospital Internal Medicine Residency, 2000
Emory University Nephrology Fellowship, 2002 

My experience at The Christ Hospital Internal Medicine Program was positive.  Like many incoming medicine residents, I sought to pursue a career in primary care but also keep my options open for fellowship.  During my residency, I was able to develop personal and professional relationships with many faculty members.  As a result of this, I was provided the opportunity to develop my skills as a primary care practitioner as well as budding sub-specialist.  I sought the opportunity to work in a private practice setting in my final two years.  There I experienced patient diversity that is not always apparent in the clinical setting.  While working with subspecialty attendings on rotations, I was afforded inpatient and outpatient evaluation opportunities.  Additionally, I performed, with appropriate supervision, many procedures that would undoubtedly have been performed by fellows had I been at another institution. 

Ultimately my experience at Christ Hospital led me to fellowship training.  With personal recommendations from the staff, I interviewed at several quality fellowship programs and was able to attend the fellowship program of my choice.  While at this academic institution, I noticed how the residents were treated.  They were treated first as service providers and secondly as learners.  Many times they were denied valuable procedural opportunities because of the abundance of fellows.  The residents' teaching experience was diluted as they spent their time limited to the inpatient setting supervised by fellowship trainees instead of the attending physician.  Needless to say, looking back I was quite thankful for the training I experienced at Christ Hospital.

The decision to attend a residency program at a private institution rather than an academic center was difficult.  During my years of residency, I wondered if I had made the right decision, but now that I'm in my Gastroenterology fellowship, I'm sure that my choice was the right one.

My residency at Christ Hospital prepared me well to both practice general Internal Medicine and Critical Care.  The number of procedures that I performed (intubations, central lines, right heart catheterizations, chest tubes, etc.) and codes that I supervised cannot be matched by my peers from academic centers where fellows are often in charge.  Because there are no medical subspecialty fellows at Christ Hospital, the Internal Medicine residents perform all the procedures and run all the codes.  The experience left me adept and comfortable in all aspects of Critical Care.

Everyone should have the opportunity to experience the work environment of both a private hospital and an academic center before the choice of where to practice is made.  Both have their advantages, but it is difficult to know which fits your practice style best without spending a significant amount of time in each.  Every medical student spends time in an academic center, but only those who choose a residency at a private hospital will actually experience the differences. 

I still consider the time I spent at Christ Hospital to be some of the best of my life.