Indiana University * Methodist Family Practice Center Opens

Former resident Lanny R. Copeland, MD, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, returned October 9 to the IU School of Medicine to give a continuing medical education lecture to Department of Family Medicine faculty, IU family medicine residents, and Indiana family practitioners. His talk was part of the celebration program for the new Indiana University * Methodist Family Practice Center last fall. Dr. Copeland was an intern at Wishard Hospital (then Marion County General Hospital) in 1971-72. He then went into the military and was based at both Albany, Georgia, and Okinawa before setting up practice in Greensburg, Indiana. After two years in Indiana, he returned to southern Georgia to practice for eighteen years.

"There were only twenty-five family practice residencies in the country when I was an intern," Dr. Copeland recalls. "It was a transition time from general to family practice medicine. But my family doctor in Milan, Indiana, was a good role model. I knew I wanted to be in primary care." During Dr. Copeland's internship he encountered teachers of whom he has long-lasting memories. "Joe Mamlin, John Glover, John Philips and Doug Zipes are a few of those faculty," he says. "I just love the general hospital flavor that is still there at Wishard." Today, he is professor of family and community medicine at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia, and vice president of primary care development at the Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia. He is currently involved in developing a rural primary care model for southwest Georgia. But he also wants to come home. "In another year or so, I want to be back in the envir-onment where I began," says Dr. Copeland. "Indiana is a great place to live; I want to be among the deciduous trees again."

IU and Methodist Hospital family practice physicians came together to create a single residency program in 1997. The new clinical building provides a modern, attractive setting for patient care that enhances the training opportunities for their residents. It is accessible to downtown workers and residents and is located close to Methodist, Indiana University and Riley hospitals of Clarian Health. The center includes thirty examination rooms, four procedure rooms, two family counseling rooms, an on-site laboratory, an X-ray facility, patient education rooms and a cardiovascular stress testing facility. Residency Program Director Christopher J. Shank, MD, reports that with twenty-four resident physicians, this program is one of the more successful in the Midwest.