Curriculum Overview - Internal Medicine Residency, St. Joseph

The St. Joseph Internal Medicine Residency utilizes an array of diverse conferences and didactic experiences to provide residents with all the tools necessary to become competent and compassionate physicians. The R1 year is foundational and designed to focus on the pathophysiology of common diseases and provide the basis for excellent clinical knowledge and acumen. The R2 year will build on this and transition to development of critical leadership principles necessary to lead medical teams. Finally, the R3 year will build on the previous years, and introduce the concept of physicians as educators. At the end of 3 years, our hope is you will graduate with not only exceptional clinical knowledge, but will have developed leadership and educational skills to become a leader in health care.

Noon Conference: This conference is held Monday–Thursday from noon–1 p.m. and consists of a resident led case presentation or sub-specialist teaching.

Final Friday Rewind: Held on the last Friday of each rotation during noon conference, this session will turn key learning points from the previous month’s didactics into board review style questions. This conference will use repetition to further the learner’s educational journey while also helping prepare each resident for the ABIM examination.

Morbidity and Mortality: This conference is designed to provide a safe venue for residents to identify areas of improvement and self-reflection with regard to death and complications which are sometimes unpredictable and unavoidable in the practice of medicine. Medical errors and omissions in patient care are also explored, along with professionalism and how it pertains to the practice of being a physician. Attending physicians and other medical staff who have experience in pertinent areas and who participated in the patient’s care are encouraged to attend.

Primary Care Curriculum: Our primary care curriculum takes place once per week and is attending physician led. Here, common primary care topics are taught and discussed in small groups with ample time for robust discussion.

State of the Residency: This is a program director led conference which takes place once per month. This conference is a time to review common program initiatives, reinforce common program requirements, elicit both open and confidential feedback, assess for generalized resident wellness and safety, and update residents on upcoming events.

Legends Series: As part of our commitment to wellness and resiliency, this conference brings in experts and champions from the field of medicine in addition to non-medical fields to discuss success, failure, resiliency, overcoming disappointment, how to improve and persevere, and living a full life.

Journal Club: Attending or resident led, journal club has at its core goal to engage in discussion of evidence-based medicine and how to critically appraise and incorporate medical literature into clinical practice.

Parker Power Half Hour: This conference is twice monthly and is led by our program director, Dr. Joey Parker. This conference ranges from interactive medical cases, to board review questions with board examination pearls. The purpose of this conference series is to create competent physicians for life onwards, and to excel on the ABIM examination.

Intern Academy: This series is designed specifically for interns in the beginning of the year and geared toward accelerating their progress into high functioning residents. Topics include how to increase efficiency, reinforcing medical knowledge surrounding common medical problems, practicing giving complete and efficient patient presentations, how to call consultants, how to sign patients out correctly to enhance transitions of care, proper medication reconciliation, and to openly discuss other challenges interns may have.

Senior Academy: The transition from intern to senior resident can be challenging and anxiety provoking. The transition to becoming a senior resident is thought to happen organically, but rarely is there intentional teaching on the intricacies of this transition. In this series, rising senior residents learn how to diagnose their learner, teach efficiently, provide feedback, communicate clearly and effectively, and learn the importance of mentoring interns.

Simulation: Residents will have the opportunity to practice their rapid response and CODE BLUE skills in a controlled environment.

Interpersonal and Communication Skills: Time spent at the bedside communicating important updates, diagnoses, and treatment plans to the family are an essential part of learning, but rarely taught intentionally. Once monthly, we train residents on proper communication style as it pertains to difficult patient interactions, sharing bad news, revealing medical errors, and end of life conversations.

Academic Half Day: Once monthly, residents gather for an afternoon of dedicated learning. This conference is resident-led and topic based, focusing on one area of medicine (cardiology, pulmonary, nephrology, etc.) through didactics and board review questions. We favor an academic half day over morning report to avoid virtual lectures and to bring in person learning to our residency.

Post Rotation Tests: Increasing medical knowledge and raising test taking ability is foundational to internal medicine training. After each core elective, residents take a post-rotation test to further their knowledge of that specialty. This serves to further promote lifelong learning and to gain extensive experience in that subject area and to help promote success on the ABIM examination.

Cup of Joe: Every Friday, program leadership sends a newsletter to residents and faculty centered on high value care. In order to comprehensively train residents, we must teach how to decrease health care costs and to be excellent stewards of all resources. This weekly newsletter, titled “Cup of Joe,” is a brief pearl that residents can immediately use in the hospital or clinic to decrease excessive waste in health care and in their own practice.