WHS residency program marks 50th year
Courtesy of Washington Health System
The 2022 graduates from WHS Family Medicine Residency program are, from left, Mark Lohkamp, Jeremy Reid, Alexander Olsen, Andrea Schaeffer, Maria Bening, Brody Stringer, Shalima Mehta and Konstantinos Papadopoulos.
Courtesy of Washington Health System
WHS faculty members, former faculty members, adjunct faculty, and lower classmen join the residents from the 2022 WHS residency program at the graduation ceremony on June 10.
Courtesy of Dr. Andrea Schaeffer
Dr. Andrea Schaeffer, pictured here, and seven other residents recently graduated from WHS Family Medicine Residency program. The Class of 2022 was WHS’s 50th graduating class.
In the past half-century, more than 300 physicians have graduated from the Washington Health System Family Medicine Residency.
On June 10, WHS held a graduation ceremony and reception for the WHS Family Medicine Residency Class of 2022 at Southpointe Golf Club, where the residents celebrated their achievement with family, friends, and WHS staff.
“I think the thing that is notable about this class is their perseverance and ability to endure throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, which has essentially defined their medical training. I’m proud of them,” said Dr. Lauren O’Brien, Director of Graduate Medical Education. “Nobody thinks when you enter medicine you’re going to deal with a pandemic. Nine months into their residency, the world as they knew it shut down. We were taking care of very sick patients, with no real algorithm of how to care for them.”
Physicians graduating from WHS Family Medicine Residency this year include Mark Lohkamp, D.O.; Jeremy Reid, D.O.; Alexander Olsen, D.O.; Andrea Schaeffer, D.O.; Brody Stringer, D.O.; Shalima Mehta, M.D.; and Konstantinos Papadopoulos, M.D.
WHS Family Medicine Residency was founded in 1970 by Dr. George Schmieler, and the Class of 2022 marked WHS’s 50th graduating class.
Two physicians from the Class of 2022 will remain at WHS and become full-time physicians in the Washington community, while the others have accepted assignments or will pursue specialty fellowships across the country, including Utah, Maryland, and Chicago.
Schaeffer, who grew up in the South Hills and wanted to remain in the area, will join Claysville Family Practice in July as an attending physician.
“I won’t lie when I say that the past few years were the hardest of my life. Entering residency is already a daunting task, but adding a pandemic into the mix was nothing that my classmates or I could have anticipated,” said Schaeffer, who has wanted to be a physician since she was a child. “While the rest of the world came to a stop, we were expected to keep going and push ourselves past limits that I didn’t even know I had. Looking back on it now, I can see how much we all have grown from the experience.”
Schaffer said her classmates supported each other and grew closer throughout the pandemic.
“We were able to keep going because we were all going through it together, and we needed to be there for our patients,” she said.
The residency program, which began in the basement of the hospital with Schmieler and one resident, has expanded over the years.
WHS residents are practicing in nearly every state, and several graduates practice overseas. The graduates have worked with hundreds of thousands of patients in family medicine and as hospitalists, emergency room physicians, and in collegiate medicine, and have pursued fellowships in sports medicine, obstetrics, and gynecology.
The residency program provides 36 months of training, divided into four-week blocks.
The rotations include training with physicians specializing in a variety of fields, and are completed at Washington Health System, with the exception of a four-week rotation at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Since the residency program’s inception in 1971, it has included on-campus housing for residents.
“Being within walking distance of my colleagues allowed us to become more than that – it allowed us to become friends,” said Schaeffer. “In a time when the rest of the world was isolated, we had a social support network readily available. These residents became some of my best friends, and I am so thankful for the friendships that will undoubtedly be lifelong.”