Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Residency Program
Educating Compassionate, Skilled Physicians Committed to the Communities They Serve
The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education The WRIGHT Choice
The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education (TWCGME) is affiliated with The Wright Center for Community Health, the cornerstone ambulatory care delivery service organization of our Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortium (GME-SNC).
Our GME-SNC is one of the largest in the nation, funded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). It addresses the national primary care physician workforce shortage and misdistribution and related health and health care career disparities by force-multiplying the impact of primary care health services delivery, workforce development, and public health by optimizing public and private clinical revenues.
Together with consortium stakeholders, The Wright Center trains primary care residents and fellows in a community-based, community-needs-responsive workforce development model to improve the health and welfare of our communities through responsive, wholeperson health services for all and the sustainable renewal of an inspired, competent workforce that is privileged to serve.
Physicians in our Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)- accredited residency and fellowship programs are immersed in diverse inpatient and outpatient health care settings where they are most needed. This increases their likelihood of working in rural and other medically underserved areas, such as underresourced urban neighborhoods, after completing their training. Our residents and fellows are empowered and expected to lead community-responsive care innovations throughout their training.
Our physician learners gain hands-on experience with diverse and medically underserved populations at our
affiliated Federally Qualified Health Center Look-Alike Teaching Health Center locations and a school-based health clinic known collectively as The Wright Center for Community Health.
The Wright Center’s care teams are privileged to provide affordable, high-quality, whole-person primary health services in our primary care community health centers, allowing them the opportunity to address the conditions that affect the health and well-being of people where they live, learn, work, and play.
As a leader in delivering whole-person primary health services in an eight-county area in Northeast Pennsylvania, The Wright Center treated more than 35,000 patients during nearly 140,000 patient visits in the 2023-24 fiscal year. We specialize in providing a continuum of care for our patients, from pediatrics to geriatrics.
The Wright Center is headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and operates a growing network of community health centers, including a mobile medical and dental unit called Driving Better Health. The regional locations offer responsive and whole-person primary health services. Patients typically have the convenience of going to a single location to access integrated medical, dental, and behavioral health, as well as community-based addiction treatment and recovery services.
Our passionate purpose is to create transformational care teams of leaders who empower patients, families, and communities to own and optimize their health. Do you want to learn more about medicine that can improve community health and launch your career?
Make The WRIGHT choice and contact us today at gmerecruitment@TheWrightCenter.org.
Pursue Your Passion Not Just Your Career
Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Residency Program
Our Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Residency (PM&R) Program was developed as a collaborative effort committed to sustaining and expanding physical medicine and rehabilitation services in our communities.
The PM&R Program utilizes a communitybased consortium model as its foundation. The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education partnered with Allied Services Integrated Health System, Northeast Rehabilitation Associates, and Regional Hospital of Scranton to provide the faculty, staff, and diverse learning environments
required to develop each resident’s skills and abilities. Our program’s mission is to foster a supportive environment that offers diverse clinical experiences aimed at producing physicians who are skilled clinicians and passionate patient advocates.
After welcoming its first cohort in July 2022, this Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited, four-year residency program provides extensive training in the evidence-based diagnostic care and treatment of patients with disabilities in a variety of clinical settings, from minor injuries to devastating trauma.
As a specialty, PM&R allows clinicians to treat a diverse population of patients or, if they choose, narrow their scope of practice to focus on specific groups of diagnoses. Our residency program’s goal is to emulate this uniqueness by working closely with our residents to create a truly individualized learning environment. Our residents are encouraged to meet with
their faculty advisor, mentors, and program director to explore the resources available to begin developing their individual learning plan (ILP) as soon as possible.
Our residents receive exposure to PM&R principles early in their first year as they start to develop the fundamental skills they will rely on throughout the remainder of their training and career.
The ILP will emphasize a stepwise progression of these fundamental skills, eventually allowing the residents to advance toward an autonomous practice by the completion of their training. As the resident develops the necessary competencies to advance into their formative PM&R years, their ILP becomes more specific in its intent while still allowing the flexibility for change.
Sometime during the latter part of their PGY-2 year, the process becomes more formalized as residents define their future plans. Hands-on experience within our
practice environment ensures the success of our residents in both clinical practice and administrative roles, such as medical directorships.
One of the key strengths of our program is the commitment of our faculty. The overwhelming majority of our faculty for PGY-2 through PGY-4 are within the same practice group, ensuring a cohesive and collaborative learning environment.
Our program has two tracks available to M.D. and D.O. candidates – the (4-year) categorical positions and the (3-year) reserved positions. Categorical positions include completing an internship within our program. Reserved positions are reserved for candidates with previous graduate medical education. Applicants for the reserved track must have completed a PGY-1 and are ready to start a PGY-2 for the upcoming application cycle.
For more information about this program, please contact PhysicalMedicineandRehab@ TheWrightCenter.org.
Requirements
• Completion of the ERAS common application form
• Curriculum Vitae
• Official medical school transcript
• Official USMLE/COMLEX transcript - Residency programs require steps one and two, and fellowship programs require steps one, two, and three
• Three (3) current clinical letters of recommendation (must be dated within a year)
• Medical Student Performance Evaluation/Dean’s letter
• A photograph and personal statement explaining your interest in the program you are applying
• Preferred medical school graduation date within five years of application, with the exception of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, which is three years
• Valid ECFMG certificate, if an international medical graduate
• 2024-2025 Recruitment Season GME Program Metrics: Application Selection Guidelines and Recommendations
Research & Scholarly Work
In accordance with Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) common program requirements, as well as the spirit of academic medicine, we provide a robust scholarly activity curriculum brought to life through the opportunities that we provide to our residents and fellows, and the scholarly work they produce.
One of our core beliefs is that it takes far more than medical knowledge to create the next generation of physician leaders. Our scholarly activity curriculum has application in all ACGME areas of competence.
Our learners acquire the skills needed to contribute to respected literature and thereby come to appreciate its intrinsic value in practice and quality of care. In teaching our residents and fellows the skills necessary for evidence-based medicine, we shape curiosity into an appreciation for lifelong learning. By graduation, each resident and fellow has learned to fuse quality improvement evidence with practice-based learning –
the driving force for which all research is initiated and investigated.
Scholarly Activity leadership roles have been created for residents to fill who are experienced in research, presentation, publication, and other forms of scholarship. These leaders act as liaisons between the resident/fellow body, program faculty, and GME administration to support the development and sharing of scholarly activity at The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education. The committee currently consists of one chief resident of scholarly activity and two resident leaders.
The Community-Oriented Primary Care (COPC) research project requirement allows residents to build skills in problem identification, problem-solving, and needbased intervention on the community level. Residents work with interdisciplinary teams within their community health center setting to identify the needs of relevant stakeholders, plan and develop an intervention, and implement their intervention.
View Institutional Review Board to learn more about The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education IRB (WCGME-IRB). Contact research@TheWrightCenter.org with any questions.
Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortium Model
Founded in 1976 as the Scranton-Temple Residency Program, TWCGME educates residents, fellows, and interprofessional students while providing nondiscriminatory, high-quality, affordable, whole-person primary health services through our clinical settings in communities that need them most. Those humble beginnings included six internal medicine residents. Today, we have more than 665 employees, including more than 200 resident and fellow physicians.
Our nonprofit Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortium sponsoring institution is affiliated with community partners and hospitals in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Our model follows the national Beyond Flexner movement that is focused on developing community-minded health professionals who are active agents of equitable health care, and was designed to address our nation’s health care workforce shortages and misdistribution.
PM&R resident physician Dr. Alan Lam presented at The American Medical Society of Sports Medicine Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, in April 2024.
Who We Are
A U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration Primary Care Workforce Development Grant enabled The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education to create and launch its very first residency program in Internal Medicine almost 50 years ago.
Mission Vision
To improve the health and welfare of our communities through responsive, wholeperson health services for all and the sustainable renewal of an inspired, competent workforce that is privileged to serve
For our Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortium framework that integrates patient care delivery, workforce development, innovation, and empowered voice of communities to be the leading model of primary health care in America
Core Values
Do the Wright thing
Be privileged to serve
Be an exceptional team member
Be driven for excellent results
Be trustworthy and accountable
Spread optimism
Demographics:
Resident and Fellow Physicians
Data from July 17, 2024
PRIMARY HEALTH CENTERS
Tunkhannock
Tunkhannock, PA Wyoming County
Clarks Summit
South Abington Twp., PA Lackawanna County
*North Scranton Scranton, PA Lackawanna County
Scranton School District Scranton, PA Lackawanna County
Friendship House Scranton, PA Lackawanna County
*Wilkes-Barre
Wilkes-Barre, PA Luzerne County
Dental services
Rural area
Urban area
*Wright Center-owned buildings
*Mid Valley Jermyn, PA Lackawanna County
*Dickson City Dickson City, PA Lackawanna County
Scranton Counseling Center Scranton, PA Lackawanna County
Scranton Scranton, PA Lackawanna County
PA Lackawanna County
North Pocono Covington Twp.,
PM&R Learning Environments
• Allied Services Integrated Health System
• Northeastern Rehabilitation Associates
• Regional Hospital of Scranton
*Mid Valley
*North Scranton
Scranton
Tunkhannock
*Dickson City
Hawley
North Pocono
Scranton
*Wilkes-Barre
Scranton School District