Karam excels in overseeing LSU’s residency program at EKL

In a 10-by-10 room without windows, books crowd two shelves, mostly journals of medicine. One also observes an antique apothecary desk and photos of graduating classes in ornate frames hung around his small and neatly cramped office in one of the buildings Dr. George Karam playfully refers to as “two tin cans.” Most know the tin cans as the Earl K. Long Medical Center, the home away from home for Karam, who oversees the LSU residency program. Twenty-three years have blazed by at EKL as the LSU program has helped to rebuild the image of the proud old hospital on the north edge of Baton Rouge. Through it all, Karam has been the face of the program. The doctors who have learned from him are part of the LSU Internal Medicine Residency in Baton Rouge, which dates to 1990, when Karam was brought in from the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans, where he was a faculty member. “It’s hard to count how many people look at George as a second father,” says Dr. Dean Lauret, an assistant professor of clinical medicine and one of Karam’s dozens of protégés. “He establishes those kinds of relationships naturally with people. That spreads out to the faculty members and the chief residents and residents. He’s told me before, the thing he’s most proud of that he’s done here is that he’s established this atmosphere of mentorship and nurturing.” Read the new Business Report cover story by Randy Rosetta here.