UChicago Medicine is launching two new residency programs at its Ingalls Memorial Hospital campus in Harvey, aiming to train dozens of new primary care doctors in a corner of Chicago's Southland that has struggled for years to attract and keep physicians. The family medicine and internal medicine programs will bring a combined 72 resident physicians to the hospital once fully scaled up, with inaugural classes set to begin in July 2027.
The family medicine residency has already been approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, while the internal medicine program is expected to receive its own approval this month, according to the Chicago Tribune. The family medicine program will start with eight residents in its first class, while internal medicine will begin with 16, both on three-year training tracks that will eventually bring the family medicine program to 24 residents and internal medicine to 48, per Becker's Physician Leadership.
Medical school graduates began submitting applications for the family medicine residency through the Electronic Residency Application Service on Wednesday, with the internal medicine program's application window opening later this month, according to UChicago's Biological Sciences Division. Both programs share the same July 2027 start date.
A Region Federal Officials Have Flagged for Decades
The Tribune reports that Harvey has a median family income of $42,429, per Census.gov figures, and that about one in five residents in the hospital's service area live below the poverty line, according to a news release. Harvey's Medicaid coverage rate stands at 43.8%, per the Cook County Public Health Department, compared with 18.5% across suburban Cook County overall — a stark gap that underscores just how much the community relies on safety-net care.
Those figures track with the federal government's own assessment of the region. Harvey and surrounding Southland communities are designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration as Primary Care and Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas as well as Medically Underserved Areas, according to U.S. Senate records. Dr. Lakshmi Warrior, chief medical officer at UChicago Medicine Ingalls Memorial, said providers are needed in the area, according to the Tribune, and said she believes the residencies may encourage graduates to continue practicing in the Southland after they finish training.
Betting on Doctors Who Train Nearby Staying Nearby
That belief has data behind it. Association of American Medical Colleges figures show that 55.7% of physicians who completed U.S. residency training between 2015 and 2024 went on to practice in the same state where they trained, including 53.3% of residency graduates in Illinois specifically. Retention rates vary widely by state, ranging from 33.6% in Washington, D.C. to 75.7% in California, per the same AAMC data.
Warrior said Ingalls should remain a community hospital powered by academic medicine, according to the Tribune's report. Mike Antoniades, president of UChicago Medicine Ingalls Memorial, said the university's investment will strengthen the workforce in the Southland, adding that UChicago and Ingalls are investing in the community and the next generation of physician leaders.
Where Residents Will Actually See Patients
The family medicine residency is built around a partnership with Family Christian Health Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center in Harvey that residents will use as their primary outpatient clinical site. The center is a 501(c)(3) organization that delivers primary, dental, pediatric, and OB/GYN care to medically underserved Southland residents regardless of a patient's insurance or ability to pay, according to Family Christian Health Center.
Internal medicine residents, meanwhile, will have the opportunity to work at an outpatient center currently being built to connect discharged patients with follow-up care, the Tribune reports. Dr. John Yoon serves as program director of the internal medicine residency, and residents in both programs will complete pediatric rotations at UChicago Medicine Comer Children's Hospital in Hyde Park. Attending faculty at Ingalls will function as supervising physicians for the residency classes, with residents working primarily out of Ingalls Memorial Hospital itself.
Funding the Expansion
The Ingalls Development Foundation, the hospital's philanthropic arm, provided a $5 million grant to help launch the residencies, while UChicago Medicine is also providing institutional funding. A separate BridgeGME Chicago grant — a collaboration between Illinois College of Osteopathic Medicine and Pritzker School of Medicine — will further support the programs, according to the Tribune.
Graduate medical education across UChicago Medicine is overseen by Dr. Vineet Arora, Dean for Medical Education at the Pritzker School of Medicine, and Dr. Mark Anderson, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, according to Pritzker School of Medicine. National workforce data adds another layer of context to who is entering these fields: women made up 50.2% of medical residents nationwide during the 2024–2025 academic year, a historic majority, and held 56.3% of positions in family medicine residencies specifically, per AAMC figures.
Built on Existing Training Infrastructure
The new residencies are not the first academic training programs at Ingalls. The hospital already hosts UChicago psychiatry residency rotations on its adult inpatient unit and runs a PGY1 pharmacy residency program, a one-year postgraduate track focused on acute clinical pharmacy care, according to UChicago Medicine.
Ingalls Memorial Hospital was built in Harvey and founded in 1923, celebrating its 100th anniversary of community health care in the Southland in November 2023. UChicago Medicine merged with Ingalls Health System in October 2016, making Ingalls the academic health system's first suburban community hospital and adding outpatient clinics in Calumet City, Crestwood, Flossmoor, South Holland, and Tinley Park. Ingalls has also served as the destination hospital for patients in several recent Southland emergencies, including a fatal ATV crash in South Holland this past March and a fatal single-vehicle crash involving a Calumet City teen in February.
