As the house staff president of the OSF Saint Francis Residency Program and chief resident of the Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Combined Residency Program at the hospital, Dr. Daniel O’Brien represents each of the 10 residency programs at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria.  He interfaces with the OSF administration and the dean of graduate medical education at the University of Illinois, and is a representative for the Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Program, assisting in residency coordination and physician recruitment, and spends a considerable amount of time caring for his patients.

Excelling both academically and in extracurricular activities during medical school, O’Brien was chosen by his peers to speak at their commencement ceremony in 2006. He received the Gold Humanitarian Award, as well as the Daniel DeSilva Memorial Award for community service.

In 2006, O’Brien was accepted for the University of Illinois College of Medicine’s Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Combined Residency Program. He was elected by his peers to serve as the house staff vice president in 2008 and president in 2009. In this capacity, he represents the interests of more than 200 residents across all medical disciplines at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.

In 2009, Dr. O’Brien was also named chief resident of the Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency Program, taking on additional duties on top of an already heavy case load. An advocate for this program, O’Brien has led recruitment efforts for the past two years.

Not only does O’Brien spend considerable amounts of time working with patients and fellow residents at the hospital, he also finds time to actively volunteer in the community. He is currently involved with the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce, the Young Professionals Organization of Greater Peoria and Junior Achievement of Central Illinois. This past summer, O’Brien volunteered to serve at a diabetes camp for kids in central Illinois for an entire week, monitoring a cabin of boys afflicted with juvenile diabetes. He plans to join a group of physicians traveling to Haiti in February 2010 to provide free medical care to impoverished families. iBi