St. Luke’s 2025 Resident and Fellow Graduation Ceremony Celebrates Next Generation of Physicians
St. Luke’s University Health Network proudly celebrates its 2025 Resident and Fellow graduates – physicians and providers who have completed specialty training through 55 residency and fellowship programs at St. Luke’s University Health Network.
The 33rd Annual Graduation Ceremony was held June 13 at the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem. Nearly 50% of the graduating class of physicians will remain with St. Luke’s – an enormous benefit to the greater Lehigh Valley. As one of the nation’s top teaching hospitals, St. Luke’s attracts, cultivates and retains talent and expertise, ensuring the region will continue to enjoy local access to the highest standards of medical care.
“The growth of our programs year over year has been rapid, and that speaks to the Network’s commitment to paving the way for the next generation of learners” said J.P. Orlando, Ed.D, PCC, Chief Graduate Medical Education Officer. “We are being intentional about mentorship and making sure that we’re building a community around education. We’re helping our residents and fellows really feel connected to that intentional work we’re doing, and it’s exciting each year at orientation to welcome and interact with physicians who will be training with us and will hopefully be our future colleagues.”
For example, nine of our longstanding Graduate Medical Education residencies at St. Luke’s, including Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine and Internal Medicine, have collectively retained 40 physicians to stay with the Network this year. This includes those who will take on roles as attending physicians (29 hired) and those will further explore subspecialties of their chosen field (11 pursuing sub-specialty training) in a St Luke’s fellowship.
“From the beginning, we’ve recruited doctors who are team players, collegial, and motivated to serve this community. We teach them well and we treat them well during their time in the residency,” says the Bethlehem Campus Internal Medicine Program Director, John Hippen, MD, FACP. “We let them explore different opportunities and interests, which lets them see the vast possibilities within the Network.”
Holly Stankewicz, DO, program director of the Emergency Medicine residency at Bethlehem Campus and Andrew Goodbred, MD, program director of the Family Medicine residency at Anderson Campus, concur.
“We have faculty, both core and clinical, who are very dedicated and passionate about teaching. Our goal is to make sure the residents are able to handle whatever walks in the door.”
One of this year’s graduates remaining with the Network has another reason to view this milestone as a momentous occasion. Kurt Henly, DPM, a graduate of the Podiatric Medicine and Surgery Residency, was just months away from program completion in November 2023 when he was critically injured in an automobile accident. His extensive injuries included severe fractures to his left femur, left patella, right tibia and fibula (lower leg), pelvis, left radius and ulna (forearm), as well as fractures to both collar bones, left foot, and multiple ribs. He also suffered a collapse of both lungs and multiple severe internal abdominal injuries. He has since endured numerous surgeries and is grateful for the Network-wide support he received throughout his recovery.
“For this residency, we work at most of the hospitals within the Network. At each campus, for the first time I was back to any of those hospitals, it was like a reunion,” said Henly, who will join the St. Luke’s Monroe Campus this summer as an attending physician. “This has always been a very welcoming, supportive, family-like environment.”
Program director Robert Diamond, DPM, says Henly’s perseverance, ability to finish his residency, and the fact that he has three other program graduates staying with him at St. Luke’s this year are all worth celebrating.
“My residents,” he says, “really are a family.”
About St. Luke’s
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 21,000 employees providing services at 15 campuses and 350+ outpatient sites. With annual net revenue of $4 billion, the Network’s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke’s hospitals operate the largest network of trauma centers in Pennsylvania, with the Bethlehem Campus being home to St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital.
Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school campus. It also operates the nation’s oldest School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 52 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with more than 500 residents and fellows. In 2022, St. Luke’s, a member of the Children’s Hospital Association, established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only free-standing facility dedicated entirely to kids.
SLUHN is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare’s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency, and patient satisfaction. St. Luke’s is a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. The Network’s flagship University Hospital earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from Fortune/PINC AI 11 years in a row, including in 2021 when it was identified as THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. In 2021, St. Luke’s was also identified as one of the 15 Top Health Systems nationally. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.
Information provided to TVL by:
Sam Kennedy
