Overview
Neda Laiteerapong, MD, MS
Chief, Section of General Internal Medicine
Section Chief's Welcome
It is with pride that I introduce you to our Section of General Internal Medicine at The University of Chicago. We are a collegial group of mission-driven academic general internists. We are highly committed to providing high quality patient care on the South Side of Chicago, educating and mentoring the next generation of physicians, conducting impactful research, and improving healthcare systems. I became Section Chief in July 2025 after joining UChicago Medicine as an internal medicine resident in 2005, then completed a general internal medicine fellowship, and joined the faculty in 2012. I am honored to be leading this impressive Section that houses amazing people who are making a real difference
About the Section
The Section of General Internal Medicine is among the oldest and largest sections in the University of Chicago’s Department of Medicine. Founded in 1968, we are home to both academic general internists and academic general internists/pediatricians (Med/Peds). Our faculty are also boarded in clinical informatics, addiction medicine, and obesity medicine and have specialty training in medical ethics, medical education, among other areas. Because of our long legacy and productivity, we are well-balanced section with ~45 faculty, fellows in research/clinical informatics, ~30 research staff, a biostatistical team, and a robust administrative support team. All of our clinical faculty are medical educators, about a dozen of our faculty are also clinical investigators, and a handful are healthcare administrators.
Education and Training
The faculty in our Section teach across multiple levels and domains. We are leaders in the Biological Sciences Division Pritzker School of Medicine and the residency programs in internal medicine and internal medicine-pediatrics. Our faculty include the Dean for Medical Education and Dean of Students, among other leaders at the Pritzker School of Medicine. Our faculty teach medical students on clinical medicine in the ambulatory clinic and inpatient services, as well as about research through Pritzker’s scholarly opportunities.
Our faculty are central to the residency program. We include the Program Director and Associate Program Director of the internal medicine/pediatrics residency program, and Associate Program Directors and Core Faculty in the internal medicine residency program. In the residency programs, we are the faculty preceptors in the residency clinic and attend on nearly half of the general medicine teaching services. Our faculty also direct the Women’s Health and Gender-Based Care Track and the Leadership for Urban Primary Care Education and Transformation (LUCENT) Track, which are beloved opportunities for our residents who demonstrate an interest in primary care. Residents also rotate on inpatient consult services (opioid use disorder and sickle cell disease) directed by our faculty.
We direct a fellowship in primary care research, and are core mentors and leaders in the Clinical Informatics Fellowship. Furthermore, our faculty direct the Masters of Science in Biomedical Sciences program and are leaders and scholars of the Bucksbaum-Siegler Institute for Clinical Excellence.
Research Accomplishments
At its core, the Section of General Internal Medicine’s research spans a broad range of clinical topics and methodologies. We have established vibrant programs of research with longstanding support from such agencies as the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Health Resources Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and other prestigious venues. The Section has several outstanding multidisciplinary academic centers and programs:
- Chicago Center for Diabetes Translation Research
- Center for Chronic Disease Research and Policy
- Partnered Research and Collaborative Implementation Science
- Center for Research in Behavioral Health and Implementation Science
- I-CARE (Implementation science methodologies to inform Chronic disease Advocacy, Research, and Education) Program
- Kidney Outcomes Research, Epidemiology and Equity (KORE) Group.
We have highly productive and successful clinical educators, who obtain grants from the Arnold G. Gold Foundation, American Medical Association, and Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine, among others. As a section, we publish and serve on the editorial boards for high impact journals like the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Health Affairs, Academic Medicine, and other national and international publications.
Patient Care
The Section of General Internal Medicine faculty are dedicated to providing the highest quality of care to a large and diverse patient population. The majority of our faculty practice both ambulatory and hospital medicine. Our ambulatory practice is at the Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine in Hyde Park, the UChicago Medicine River East clinic, and others. Our clinic is home to our internal medicine and internal medicine/pediatric residency clinics. Our faculty also lead primary care specialty clinics including women’s health and gender-based care, adult developmental disability, anticoagulation medicine, joint injections, and long COVID. In addition to ambulatory medicine, our section faculty practice hospital medicine and lead medicine consult services.
Community
Our faculty care deeply for the South Side of Chicago and caring for and working with this population. We choose to work at the University of Chicago because of this connection and community. Our inspiration for how to make the world a better place and how everyone deserves to be treated comes from our patients and this community.