Conferences

The rich patient care experiences in our program are reinforced by a robust set of competency-aligned, integrated academic conferences. Our annual conference schedule begins with Welcome and Orientation programming designed to introduce residents to each other and attendings.

A System Introduction curriculum is held in July of each year. This curriculum introduces interns to resources, processes, and people. Topics include: meeting nurses and answering nurse pages, doing orders and notes, completing dictations and discharge summaries, learning the electronic medical system, working with consultants, meeting the pharmacists and pharmacy basics, engaging in critical communication with families, and meeting the case managers and case management basics.

In July and August, Boot Camp Conferences focus on refreshing the basics of clinical care (e.g. Acute Chest pain, Thromboembolic Disease, GI Bleed, AKI, Delirium, Sepsis, Pain Management, Severe Abdominal pain).

An interactive Noon Report is held each morning following patient handoff. The purpose of Noon Report is to frame learning in the context of a clinical case, to stimulate critical thinking, and to reinforce evidence-based practice.

In August, the Academic Half Day curriculum begins with conferences held every Thursday afternoon. Conferences are integrated across inpatient and outpatient care venues and divided into 2-3 week? subspecialty blocks to encourage deep conceptual learning and resident self-study in alignment with the conference topics. The curriculum consists of didactic lectures on core topics which are frequently encountered in the clinical setting and tested on board exams. In addition, breakout sessions facilitated by faculty encourage deeper learning through case discussions and peer to peer interaction.

In addition to medical knowledge/patient care topics, weekly conferences also include:

• Resident Wellness – Provides opportunity for understanding the process of formulating unique pathways to well-being and work life balance.
• Ethics and Compassionate Care – Provides opportunities for team debriefing to process challenging emotions that arise in complex patient care  to aid development of communication, coping, and reframing strategies that support self-care, team trust, and sustained patient empathy.
• Radiology Rounds – Image review in collaboration with radiology residents and faculty for learning to interpret plain films, CT, US, MRIs and Nuclear scans within a clinical context.
• Board Study and MKSAP questions review – In addition to MKSAP sessions, twice annual Simulated Board Exams provide residents with specific feedback on medical knowledge challenges.
• Quality Improvement and Patient Safety – Residents learn to use Quality Improvement and Patient Safety tools to plan, implement, and study their own quality improvement projects, which are conducted in a variety of inpatient, outpatient, and community settings under faculty mentorship.
• Research – Research conferences are designed to teach residents the basic principles of research and to showcase research projects currently being conducted by residents and faculty.
• Grand Rounds are held twice a month, alternating between Internal Medicine Grand Rounds, which feature renowned speakers on cutting-edge topics, and Medical Education Grand Rounds, which address important topics pertinent to residents, such as Clinical Work Hours and the Learning Environment, Fatigue Mitigation, and the Residents as Teachers series.
• Morbidity, Mortality, and Improvement Conferences – These conferences identify adverse events in system-based coordination of care, communication processes, and individual contributing factors and identify initiatives to improve patient care and safety.
• Journal Clubs are held at least monthly. Journal Club promotes currency with latest evidence-based clinical information relevant to internal medicine and subspecialties, reviews principles of evidence-based medicine, and help residents to evaluate clinical practices by comparison to scientific evidence and guidelines.
• Simulation sessions are held throughout the year, beginning with a Procedure Simulation Bootcamp during orientation in July and continuing with refresher sessions to allow residents to practice their skills in a state-of-the-art simulation lab.