Staff Reports

The Family Medicine Residency Program at UT Health Northeast has successfully filled its intern positions with nine highly qualified graduating physicians, said Dr. Robert Tompkins, director of the Family Medicine Residency Program.

“The Family Medicine Residency has again been blessed in the National Resident Match Program with nine new interns,” Tomkins said. “We welcome them to Tyler and look forward to providing new primary care physicians for East Texas.”

In addition, the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Good Shepherd Medical Center in Longview met its match, welcoming its second class of 18 interns. UT Health Northeast sponsors good Shepherd’s residency program.

Dr. Emmanuel Elueze, program director for the residency program at Good Shepherd Medical Center, said this is the first year the residency program has had the full complement of three classes since the program began in 2012.

“We had almost 3,000 applicants this year, and we’re seeing more competition each year,” Elueze said. “We interviewed excellent candidates from Texas medical schools, other U.S. medical schools and international medical graduates. We successfully matched 13 U.S. medical graduates, 11 from Texas medical schools.”

The 18 residents will start in June.

UT Health Northeast’s new family medicine resident physicians and the medical schools they graduated from are: Dr. Lorraine Alexis, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tenn.; Dr. Adam Hertel, Texas Tech School of Medicine, Lubbock; Dr. Carah Howe, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston; Dr. Sarah Kuruvilla, Louisiana State University School of Medicine, Shreveport, La.; Dr. Jason Moulton, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Fort Worth; Dr. Lee Murphy, Texas A&M College of Medicine, College Station; Dr. Philip Pippin, UTMB at Galveston; Dr. Hayden Roan, Texas Tech School of Medicine, Lubbock; and Dr. My Tran, LSU School of Medicine, Shreveport.

Good Shepherd Medical Center’s new internal medicine resident physicians and the medical schools they graduated from are: Dr. Hira Bakhtiar, Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad, Pakistan; Dr. Benjamin Cameron, UNT Health Science Center, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Fort Worth; Dr. Christopher Cooper, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, S.C.; Dr. Jose Gonzalez, UTMB at Galveston; Dr. Bradley Hibbert, UTMB at Galveston; Dr. Malasha Khan, Rawalpindi Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan; Dr. Mohammed Makkouk, UTMB at Galveston; Dr. Srijna Nandivada, Texas A&M College of Medicine, College Station; and Dr. Phuong Nguyen, Texas A&M College of Medicine, College Station.

Also Dr. Gilbert Ojong, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Kansas City, Kan.; Dr. Okwuchukwu Okoli, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria; Dr. Neil Patel, UTMB at Galveston; Dr. Solomon Sallfors, UNT Health Science Center, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Fort Worth; Dr. Mehul Shah, UNT Health Science Center, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Fort Worth; Dr. Varalaxmi Sreeram, Kakatiya Medical College, Warangal, India; Dr. Jonathan Stout, UT Medical School at Houston; Dr. Elena Sutherland, UT Medical School at Houston; and Dr. Yashashree Vegi, Government Medical College Nagpur, Nagpur, India.

During the match process, medical school graduates interested in family medicine, internal medicine or other areas interview at selected residency programs and then send their preferences to the National Resident Matching Program.

The program ranks the residency programs in the order of each new physician’s interest.

Each residency program also sends its list, which ranks graduates according to its preferences, to matching program officials. The lists are then “matched up” and all participants notified of the results.

UT Health Northeast’s Family Medicine Residency Program began in 1985. It is a three-year program and has graduated 162 family physicians. More than half of these have stayed in East Texas.

Good Shepherd’s Internal Medicine Residency Program also lasts three years. Its first class will graduate in June 2015.