Dear Prospective Residents,

After a long journey to this point in your medical education, it’s now time to begin the search for a residency program. Your personal statement, CV, Dean’s letter, letters of recommendation, and experiences will help residency programs get to know your personal story – your journey and motivations. We also recognize that there is more to you than can be conveyed on paper, and that is what is most important to us in the interview. Likewise, you will also get to learn about the personalities of the programs that you interview with. You choose your program just as much as your program chooses you.

Every residency program has its own history and culture. Ours revolves around a dedication to our community, innovative thinking, teamwork, and care for our patients and for each other. Our hospital has humble beginnings. In 1891 a small group of Grand Rapids women identified a need for medical care for disadvantaged citizens. They created a fundraising campaign to fund a single free bed in the local hospital, asking for a donation from everyone named Mary, or anyone who knew a Mary. That bed became known as the “Mary Free Bed.” Over time, the community’s need grew, and so did our efforts, growing into our current rehabilitation network. To this day, our hospital is led by the Mary Free Bed Guild, a direct extension of those trailblazing women more than 125 years ago.

Our hospital offers robust inpatient and outpatient training including medically complex, pediatric, cancer, musculoskeletal, and neurologic (ranging from brain injury to stroke to spinal cord injury) rehabilitation. We are one of the few rehabilitation hospitals in the region to care for ventilatory dependent patients. Residents enjoy outpatient electrodiagnostic, musculoskeletal, neurologic, interventional spine, and pain rehabilitation rotations. We also have the opportunity to work with our in-house prosthetics and orthotics department following a orthotic/prosthetic from initial evaluation to fabrication, and any adjustments that may be needed in the future. Additionally, we have the ability to work closely with our community in the multitude of adaptive sport programs that Mary Free Bed offers (we even have some alums in the Paris Paralympics!). We often call Mary Free Bed a “one stop shop” for all things rehabilitation.

Our leaders at Mary Free Bed are dedicated to empowering residents to follow their interests and encourage them to build a career around their skills. Through the close relationships we develop with every member of the interdisciplinary team, we work to build the knowledge of future generations of physiatrists and strengthen the culture within our residency and Mary Free Bed.

As you weigh your future options, we hope that you will strongly consider joining the Mary Free Bed family. We seek candidates who are passionate about patient care, who are motivated and intellectually curious, and most importantly seek to make each day better for their patients, themselves, their colleagues, and their friends & family.

If there are any questions that you have throughout the process, please contact our residency program coordinator, Sarah Thompson at PMR.Residency@maryfreebed.com.

Our best wishes for a successful search!

Rahul Nalamasu DO
Chief Resident

Mackenzie Sacks DO
Chief Resident