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GME Internal Medicine Curriculum

The Residency Experience

Every effort is made to construct a custom curriculum for each resident based on his or her personal and professional goals.

The program is unique in that we alternate inpatient and outpatient blocks.

Inpatient teaching occurs in the wards and consists of:

  1. General medical ward blocks with teaching at the bedside by academic hospitalists and select hospitalist teaching faculty.
  2. Medical consults: senior residents have the opportunity to work one on one with attending physicians with a focus on providing consultative medical care as a consultant rather than as the primary service. Time is spent co-managing medical comorbidities in surgical patients, hospitalized psychiatric/behavioral health patients, and complex diabetic patients.
  3. CVICU and ICU months staffed by an intensivist.
     

Additional notes:

  • Residents work an in-house hospital “long shift” until 6 p.m. approximately Q4 days. Senior residents are immediately available supervising interns.
  • There are two 2-week blocks of night float annually.
  • No more than 80 hours per week is spent on patient care duties.
  • Residents have at least one full day out of seven free of patient care and responsibilities.

Electives occur in the primary care and specialty offices (which may include inpatient consults), as well as in the JFK community clinic.

  • Interns are on back up call/jeopardy approximately 4 weeks per year, covering inpatient or JFK duties as needed.
  • Seniors are on back up call/jeopardy approximately 3 weeks per year.
  • Residents will cover Saturday night float shifts 3-6 times per PGY year.
  • Daily: formal didactic noon conferences.
  • Twice a week: inpatient morning report
  • Weekly: Medical grand rounds
  • Academic Half Days: imbedded in JFK clinic weeks and covers topics including communication seminars, POCUS training, study skills, billing and coding and much more!


View Internal Medicine sample schedules.

The use of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is rapidly increasing in the field of general internal medicine. It complements the traditional history and physical examination to improve diagnostic accuracy and patient satisfaction. Because we believe that POCUS will be an essential skillset for the internists, our residency has fully integrated POCUS into the curriculum. Ultrasound education is offered throughout the year and residents are encouraged to become POCUS certified. Listed below are sample POCUS educational activities offered for the internal medicine residents at Mercy.
 

  • Interns receive a focused cardiac and pulmonary ultrasound workshop (bootcamp) during the first month of residency
  • Variety of POCUS topics are offered during the academic half day in the form of a mini workshop with a 1:3 faculty to resident ratio. Sample topics include
    • Simulated scanning sessions with Simbionix Ultrasound Mentor
    • Cardiac and pulmonary ultrasound review
    • Abdominal ultrasound
    • Ultrasound image review
    • Ultrasound guided procedures
  • Noon conference covering POCUS topics and cases
  • Each resident receives an ultrasound account to build their educational image portfolio
  • All ultrasound images are reviewed by a POCUS faculty and feedback is given for each study
  • Personalized mentorship with bedside scanning is offered throughout the year
  • Interesting cases and teaching topics are posted and discussed within the residency social media website
  • Residents are encouraged to participate in POCUS related QI projects
  • Senior residents have an option to rotate through a 1- or 2- week POCUS elective to refine their POCUS knowledge, teaching, scanning skills and work towards achieving certification. 

Program Info & Resources

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