Message from the Internal Medicine Director
A message from Jaya M. Raj, MD, FACP, Program Director
Dear Candidates,
The profession of medicine will challenge you to make a lifelong commitment to learning and personal growth. As you apply for residency training, you are just in the beginning stages of the exciting, enriching, and rewarding career that awaits you. Our program ensures that all our residents develop competency in the skills they will need to be successful in the rapidly changing field of medicine while helping each resident attain their individual career goals.
The faculty and leadership of the Creighton University Arizona Health Education Alliance are deeply committed to fostering a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our program. We celebrate the diversity of our residents, faculty, and staff through educational programming and social events to promote a sense of belonging.
Our program mission is to train compassionate and clinically outstanding physicians who will provide the highest quality, evidence-based medical care and advance the practice of medicine through excellence in patient care, education, research, and quality improvement. To that end, our program is an integrated program on two campuses: St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center and Valleywise Health Medical Center. Both training sites provide an enriching, collaborative environment that offers a multitude of opportunities for residents and medical students to become lifelong learners and trailblazers who will lead the nation in changing healthcare to meet the needs of the communities we serve.
Program highlights:
- Our residents provide patient-centered, tertiary-level care for a diverse patient population in a variety of inpatient, outpatient, and elective clinical settings. The campuses at both St. Joseph’s Hospital and Valleywise Health allow residents to gain experience in managing patients with a wide spectrum of acute and chronic illnesses and to make a positive impact on the health of our underserved community.
- Subspecialty rotations allow residents to learn in Centers of Medical Excellence (e.g. Lung Disease and Transplant, Cancer Care, Cardiovascular Care, Hepatology and Liver Transplant Care, Lung Transplant, Women’s Health, and Neurology).
- Our residents role model compassion. They are active in community outreach, for example, through rotations at the St. Vincent de Paul Clinic, volunteer opportunities in Mexico, and involvement in the St. Joseph’s CATCH program, in which residents visit patients in their homes accompanied by a social worker.
- A highly structured and rigorous curriculum provides an excellent balance between clinical learning and didactics, utilizing various formats such as lectures, workshops, simulations, case-based conferences (Morning Report), Grand Rounds, and small group discussions.
- Residents choose from a variety of electives to match their professional goals and prepare them for careers in Primary Care, Hospital Medicine, and Subspecialty Medicine.
- Our residents have published original research, case reports, and review articles and presented abstracts at numerous regional and national scientific meetings. Our residents have a high success rate in finding jobs after residency and matching into fellowship programs, including Gastroenterology, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Hematology and Oncology, Rheumatology, Nephrology, and Infectious Disease. The program currently hosts two fellowship programs in Phoenix: Gastroenterology, and Hospice and Palliative Care.
- Creighton University School of Medicine has a fully equipped, state-of-the-art simulation center on the St. Joseph’s campus.
- Faculty are deeply committed to teaching, hold academic appointments as assistant, associate, or full professors, and are actively engaged in ongoing faculty development.
- Our “Residents as Teachers” workshops help residents to develop excellence in teaching and mentoring medical students and junior colleagues.
- Our comprehensive educational program trains physicians not only in the skills, attitudes, and knowledge required of competent and compassionate physicians, it also supports the continuous development of personal well-being, work-life balance, and personal goal attainment through our Resident Wellness Program.
We the faculty, residents, staff, and administrative leadership feel privileged to train the outstanding physicians of the future. We hope you will join us on this exciting journey.
To view a video message about our program, click here.
Sincerely,
Jaya M. Raj, MD, FACP
Professor of Medicine—Creighton University School of Medicine
Program Director, Internal Medicine Residency Program Phoenix, Arizona
