Residencies and Fellowships

Welcome from the chairman



Dr. Klassen is Henry J. Lehnhoff Professor of Medicine, and has been Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine since 2005.  He received his MD from the University of Kansas School of Medicine and his residency training at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.  He has completed a fellowship in Arthritis and Rheumatism at the National Institutes of Health.  Once a chief resident at the University of Iowa, he remains a staunch advocate for our educational mission and our house staff.  He enjoys an international reputation as a researcher in the mechanisms of autoimmune disease, and he founded UNMC’s Experimental Immunology Laboratory and HIV Clinic.  He is the director for the nationally-recognized ACP Internal Medicine Board Review Course held in Chicago.

The Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center enjoys a national reputation in clinical care, healthcare training, and innovative research.  UNMC’s vitality is reflected by the construction of new buildings for research, medical education, and patient care.  We are an academic medical center on the move, and we hope you will be part of our growth and success.

Rated by US News & World Report as the top hospital in Nebraska, The Nebraska Medical Center is nationally ranked in Cancer Care, Gastroenterology, Nephrology, Neurology/Neurosurgery, and Orthopedics.  Our Department contributes greatly to our institution’s acclaim.  Several of our Division chiefs are current or past presidents of their respective specialty societies.  We are known nationally or internationally for expertise in lymphoma, rheumatoid arthritis treatment, geriatric assessment, gene-environment interactions in lung disease, transplant hepatology, diabetic vascular complications, and more.  Many of our faculty are educational leaders, too, and some are leaders in the growing emphasis on defining, measuring, and assuring physician competency.

A vigorous internal medicine residency is one of the foundations of an outstanding academic internal medicine department.  Many years ago we made an institutional commitment:  we resolved to provide an outstanding training experience for our residents, with an emphasis on education over service.
When I talk with residency candidates, I remind them when on the interview trail to ask about the 4 P’s of training programs:

• Plan:  Does the program have a curricular plan to provide rigorous training in the fundamentals of internal medicine?  Do they measure the results using instruments (in-service exams, Board passing rates) recognized by others?  We have a plan, and our house staff excel.
• Peers:  Are the residents in the program smart, driven, dedicated to their patients and profession, and fun to work with?  I think our residents are all of that – see for yourself on a visit.
• Professors:  Are the faculty not just great doctors or researchers, but committed to teaching?  Ours are.  (Our department is consistently singled out by medical students as  #1 in the medical center for teaching excellence.)
• Patients:  Are the residents exposed to a wide variety of patients, populations, and clinical problems?  Our house staff rotate through a broad mix of clinical venues, and take care of patients from all walks of life – veterans with bread-and-butter medical problems, international immigrants, medical pilgrims with exotic conditions, Midwestern rural farmers, and Omaha’s urban underserved .

We would welcome an opportunity to meet you and show off our program, our residents, and Omaha.