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    Welcome

    Forrest General Family Medicine Residency

    Since 1952, Forrest General Hospital has been the leader in medical excellence in South Mississippi, with a mission of defining the healthcare experience by providing world class care.

    The hospital has only grown since 1952, now standing as the primary referral center for 19 counties and 500,000 people, as well as the regional level II trauma center. Given the size of the hospital with 512 beds, a full cadre of subspecialists, a neonatal intensive care unit, a trauma service, and bustling emergency department - hosting a family medicine residency program in this hospital was obvious.

    We are an unopposed program built on the mission of inspiring world-class care. We are a relatively new program, recruiting this year for our third class of six residents. In our youth we are dynamic, energetic, and eager to build a program of exceptional quality. Our residents have direct guidance in how we shape our residency, our only criteria being that we will always be improving. Our one goal is to produce the best possible physicians.

    "Our program offers a remarkable combination of advantages for physicians who seek a superb balance of academic medicine and comprehensive, practical medical education which will prepare them for all aspects of the practice of Family Medicine, both rural and urban, inpatient, outpatient, or both. — Dr. Eric Hale"



    Message from our Director

    Dear Prospective Resident,

    Thank you for taking the time to discover what makes our residency program unique. I’d like to take this opportunity and introduce you to our Family Medicine Residency Program and it’s heritage.

    Since 1952, Forrest General Hospital has grown from the original 90-bed facility into a 512-bed regional hospital, with an air ambulance servicing 7 surrounding counties. Our Emergency Department is staffed by 19 board certified physicians and averages over 80,000 visits per year. Our Obstetric services perform over 2,300 deliveries per year and we have 3 neonatologists staffing our NICU. We are a level 2 trauma center. Our hospitalist service is staffed by 21 board certified internists and averages a census of approximately 130. Immediately adjacent to the hospital is Hattiesburg Clinic, a 250-provider multispecialty clinic, where the Family Medicine Center is housed and where most of the subspecialty rotations are provided. Hattiesburg Clinic has a full spectrum lab, radiology department with MRI, CT, and nuclear imaging staffed by  radiologists from 7 AM to 6 PM, pulmonary lab, in-house cardiac imaging suite, physical therapy , neurology lab, an ambulatory surgery center, endoscopy suite, infusion clinic, and a collegial atmosphere which encourages “curbside consults”.

    Our program offers an exceptional educational opportunity. Residents are literally able to park their car at the hospital in the morning, walk to their specialty rotation or make rounds on their own hospitalized patients, then walk through an enclosed crosswalk to the Family Medicine Center for their clinics, or to their clinical rotations. Taking only six residents per year allows most rotations to have only one or two residents per rotation, ensuring excellent “one-on one time” with faculty physicians throughout the day. Hattiesburg Clinic has been in operation for over 50 years and has a service area of over 300 thousand, with demand for primary care services producing an abundance of new patients for the residents as they establish their practices in the FMC.  Both Forrest General Hospital and Hattiesburg Clinic use Epic as their EMR.

    The campus of The University of Southern Miss is within short walking distance of the clinic and hospital, and offers Division 1 sports activities as well as a multitude of cultural and academic opportunities. William Carey University, also located in Hattiesburg, has a new Osteopathic School of Medicine and will graduate its third class in May. Quality of life in Hattiesburg, a two university city, is excellent, with good public and private schools and a low cost of living and affordable housing. New Orleans is only an hour and twenty minutes away, and the amazing beaches of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are only a one to 2 hour drive.  Mississippi is known for its wonderful outdoor activities including hunting, fishing, boating, rafting, and the Longleaf Trace, a paved rails- to -trails biking project which stretches 43 miles from Hattiesburg to Prentiss, awaiting the casual or serious biker.

    As you browse through our pages of information, we hope you capture the sense of commitment we have to providing world class care to our patients. We hope you will consider joining us as we make a difference in the communities we serve.

    T. Eric Hale, MD

    Program Director