Hands-On Patient Care Experience with Structured Didactic Sessions
The core of the learning experience in the internship and residency is to combine supervised “hands-on” patient care experience with structured didactic educational sessions and simulation.
During internship, the trainee participates in the didactic program of each respective department. In the departments of Emergency Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology, the didactic program is organized into “Education Days.” Education Day is a half-day, weekly session that includes core conferences on the discipline, journal club, morbidity and mortality review, board review, grand rounds and tumor board.
In the Department of Medicine, one to one-and-one-half hours daily are devoted to conferences. Below is a brief synopsis of the programs offered.
Medical Grand Rounds
This is a weekly forum, the purpose of which is to discuss new developments in the field of internal medicine and related disciplines. Speakers include program faculty and visiting professors of national reputation.
Noon Report
Residents present cases that are actively discussed by the house staff and attending faculty. The emphasis is on developing a differential diagnosis and a cost-effective diagnostic work-up and treatment plan. As a part of these case presentations, the resident also formulates three to four important clinical questions and leads an interactive discussion of the answers based on best evidence.
Subspecialty Conferences
These daily conferences, held over the lunch hour, review a planned curriculum for each of the medical subspecialties including allergy and immunology, cardiology, critical care, clinical pharmacology, nephrology, pulmonary medicine, geriatrics, hematology/oncology, rheumatology, infectious disease, gastroenterology, neurology and general medicine. Adolescent medicine, behavioral medicine, community health, dermatology and ethics topics also are reviewed in this forum.
Board Review
This weekly conference systematically encompasses questions related to various disciplines of medicine. The general medicine faculty leads the discussion.
Morbidity and Mortality Review
This monthly conference, conducted by the general medicine faculty and chief medical resident, reviews the deaths and morbidity on the teaching services. Emphasis is placed on the teaching points from each case, a review of evidence-based treatment and a review of autopsy findings by a pathologist.
ACGME Core Competency Conferences
Residents from all training programs attend these monthly conferences during which medical law, patient safety, cultural disversity, ethical and profession-specfic issues are reviewed. Presenters include community and business leaders, attorneys, hospital staff with special expertise and faculty.
Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM) Workshop
Each month, interns and residents participate in a two-hour OMM workshop in the Education Center at St. Luke's Hospital using video teleconference technology. This hands-on workshop follows a two-year curriculum provided by the OMM faculty from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine with on-site proctoring from osteopathic faculty members. The workshops review the osteopathic structural examination and various treatment modalities for each region of the body including inpatient and outpatient care.
Acute Care Conferences
These are daily conferences held in the month of July to review inpatient urgent and emergent medical problems likely to be encountered during night call or admissions. Presenters of these interactive case-based discussions are the faculty and senior medical residents.
Ambulatory Care Conferences
These are conferences held in August to review common ambulatory conditions and their diagnosis, management and treatment. These sessions given by the faculty also introduce the residents to prevention and health screening, immunization recommendations and quality improvement.
Procedural Workshop
During our new resident orientation, the critical care faculty conducts a simulation procedural workshop involving a review of the indications, contraindications, equipment, complications and anatomy related to performing: chest tube insertion, central line placement, intubation, nasogastric tube insertion, urethral catheterization, peripheral line insertion, cardioversion/defibrillation, transthoracic pacing and needle decompression.
Senior Resident Orientation
During the spring of each year, the faculty presents a series of interactive conferences to teach important elements of the role of senior resident as teacher, supervisor and evaluator. Topics include teaching techniques, and the elements of effective feedback and evaluation. In addition, the faculty discusses how to prepare and give oral presentations, abstracts and poster preparation.