Program History

Our residency program is now in it’s 17th year at its current site in Lebanon. The program was moved in 1989 from The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, where The Penn State University College of Medicine is based, to a community-based hospital,  The Good Samaritan Hospital, in an effort to provide more focused and continuous primary care experiences for its’ residents.

The move to Lebanon redefined the program as an unopposed, community hospital based program, and this proved to be quite successful. 

The origins of the program date back to 1970 when the very first academic department of Family Practice was formed at Penn State’s College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The residency program was an integral part of that department which was founded and chaired by Dr. Thomas Leaman. The first resident graduated from the program in June of 1973. 
 
To date, 178 graduates have successfully completed their training since the inception of the program at Hershey.  Ninety-three residents have completed the program since the move to Lebanon in the fall of 1989; many of our Lebanon graduates now practice within the local surrounding region.

Our program continues to receive strong support and commitment from both  The Good Samaritan Hospital as well as from The Department of Family & Community Medicine at  The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.  We are inspired by our past and continue to build upon our wealth of experience with continual involvement of our family physician graduates. Our future is bright.