Las Vegas has always been known for its dazzling lights, beautiful casinos, and bountiful entertainment options, but these were not what ultimately led Dr. Edwin Avallone – associate professor and internal medicine residency associate program director in the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV Department of Internal Medicine – to move to the city in 2020. With a wife who is a rock climbing guide and coach, the amount of rock climbing locations within a city’s vicinity was important, but, as a physician, Avallone was also looking for a place with a need for medical educators.
Those considerations led the couple to set their sights on Las Vegas as a new home. Avallone began working as a hospitalist with the Veterans Affairs Southern Nevada Healthcare System in North Las Vegas. Gradually, he became involved with graduate medical education through both HCA Healthcare and the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine’s GME programs.
“I just got more and more interested in residency program leadership, which I wasn’t doing the first two years out here after already having served in the residency program at University of Kentucky as core faculty, so I was really looking to get back into residency program leadership and formal medical education,” Avallone says.
Due to this interest in medical education, Avallone went on to become the residency associate program director for the department of internal medicine. In this role, he works closely with the medical school’s residents, overseeing their education while rotating at the North Las Vegas VA Medical Center. “When you’re operating in the [associate program director] role, you just simply know the residents so much better to help mentor them, and you’re also intimately familiar with the clinical and non-clinical strengths and weaknesses of the program,” he says. “I love the ability to be able to understand those things and make changes as we’re constantly evolving as a program.”
As a teacher, Avallone has a few goals for the residents he’s supervising, such as having a better understanding of the diagnostic process and building meaningful patient-physician relationships with all of their patients. “I operate clinically at the VA, in which we serve elderly patients who can be labeled as complex,” he says. “I enjoy seeing them build relationships with challenging patients and generate patient literacy, so that patients understand more about their illnesses so that they can be empowered to do the things we would love them to be able to do.”
Along with making sure residents learn the necessary medical skills and knowledge for them to become amazing physicians, Avallone also emphasizes the importance of knowing who you are outside of being a doctor. Residents are encouraged to not only create goals related to medicine, but to also set personal goals.
“I’d love to see my team develop their interests and goals inside of medicine, but also outside of medicine,” he states. “I do believe that your life outside of medicine does make you a better physician.”
Avallone’s interest in wanting to make a change in Southern Nevada’s healthcare was another reason for stepping into the associate residency program director role.
“When you look at the numbers of people graduating residency programs, a disproportionate number of them stay in the geographic region in which they trained, which is critical for us because we are a very medically underserved area,” Avallone says. “We are encountering an exponentially growing population that needs access to outstanding healthcare, and the healthcare system as we currently know it is abound with so many obstacles that we have to be the leaders to make the change that needs to happen at a healthcare policy level to ensure that the goals for the patients we serve are met – and that all starts with GME.”
With a growing population and a demand for more physicians, it is no secret that GME programs are vital when it comes to bringing more physicians to the state. Being able to have residents and fellows stay in the state after their training is completed is one of the main goals of the school of medicine. It’s through physicians like Avallone – who work to improve the school’s programs and ensure residents and fellows receive a quality education and have good experiences – that the school is able to make Nevada a healthier place.
