Conferences
The Internal Medicine Training Program offers more than 200 conferences
per year at each hospital site in addition to a daily morning report
conference. Our conference series is varied to meet the different learning
styles of our residents and to optimize the delivery of information.
We offer a combination of traditional didactic lectures, Case-based morning
reports, traditional grand rounds, Jeopardy style review series, Case-based
Morbidity and Mortality conference, small-group bedside physical diagnosis
rounds and small-group clinical skills sessions. The lecture series is
completely duplicated at the VA Medical Center in order to ensure a continuous
quality education at both sites.
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
|
8 a.m. |
Morning report |
Journal club/skills |
Morning report |
Physical diagnosis rounds |
Morning report |
Noon |
Interns' conference |
Core conference |
Rotating – GME, EM-IM, housestaff lunch, M&M |
Grand rounds |
Core conference |
- Internal Medicine Core Didactic Lecture Series – a twice-weekly lecture series based on a core curriculum that cycles over 18 months. The curriculum is divided into two-month blocks, each of which is devoted to a core topic. Internal medicine faculty members teach this series at each hospital. Video conferencing technique allows us to maximize our lectures when we have experts that we want to bring to both sites. The conference series is enhanced by a jeopardy-style review session at the end of each topic block.
- Morning report – we encourage an active learning style in our case-based morning report. Residents present interesting cases to a chief or program director and guide the discussion’s teaching points. We encourage active participation. The use of on-line resources in real-time during the conference fosters an evidenced-based approach to learning.
- Chair’s conference (intern report) – The chair facilitates this case-based conference. It is a favorite of all interns and enables them to observe a master clinician model the diagnostic reasoning process.
- Graduate Medical Education Conference – this conference occurs on a monthly basis and is sponsored by the Graduate Medical Education Department. Internal medicine housestaff attend along with physicians from all residencies. Topics covered are applicable to all.
- Emergency Medicine/Internal Medicine Combined Conference – this joint conference enables us to partner with our colleagues in addressing the clinical challenges that we face in patient care. Our medical admitting residents select the cases for the conference and identify the key teaching points under the guidance of one of the program directors.
- Skills sessions – these “hands-on” sessions are an opportunity for skills practice — from airway management to joint aspirations to ABG interpretations and EKG readings. They are always clinically useful and frequently interactive in the small group setting.
- Morbidity and Mortality Conference – facilitated by the chief medical residents on a monthly basis, these conferences allow us to review cases for potential clinical and systems-based issues resulting in less than desirable patient outcomes. Residents participate actively in the discussions and bring cases that they select to discuss.
- Grand rounds – this traditional conference series is held weekly and includes a monthly clinicopathology conference. It is a great time to see all of the faculty and housestaff together at the institution.
- Journal club – held every other week, journal club is an opportunity to hone the skills required to critically appraise the literature. Led by our program director, the residents run the conference, reviewing articles that are selected based on real clinical questions. Over the course of the year, we discuss a variety of study types so that residents finish with the skills to critique randomized controlled trials, case-control and cohort studies, meta-analyses, guidelines, decision analyses, cost-effective analyses and studies of diagnostic testing.
- Housestaff conference – the housestaff meet once per month with the program directors and chiefs for a “state of the residency” update and open feedback session.
- Subspecialty conferences – in addition to all of the conferences mentioned above, each subspecialty offers a series of conferences to which residents are always invited and welcome.
- Board Review – second half of the year, led by key faculty in each topic area.
