Schedule Customized to Resident’s Career Goal

The resident's schedule is individually tailored by the program director to meet the resident's long-term career goal. Each rotation is one calendar month long.

At a minimum, to fulfill the requirements set for the Transitional Year residency, each resident rotates for six months on services that focus on fundamental clinical skills. In our residency program, we met this requirement by having each resident rotate for one month on Emergency Medicine, four months on General Internal Medicine and one month on Critical Care. This also fulfills the Transitional Year requirement that these rotations be taken in ACGME accredited categorical residencies. For the remaining six months, three months are spent on medical subspecialties and three months are taken from a wide variety of clinical electives. The resident may select to rotate on obstetrics and gynecology, surgery, pediatrics, other internal medicine subspecialties, and/or an additional critical care rotation.

Ambulatory Training

Each resident follows a panel of patients and serves as the primary care physician for one year. Clinic is one-half day per week. The resident is excused from clinic during the critical care rotation month.

Patients range in age from eighteen to geriatric. Local demographics afford exposure to a large Latino population. The spectrum of visits includes health maintenance and promotion, acute episodic illness, chronic medical illness and pre-operative evaluations. Primary care doctor-patient relationship, preventive care and patient education are emphasized. The ability to practice in an HMO setting provides the resident with an opportunity to learn efficiency and economy in the outpatient setting along with the business and economics of medical practice.

The attending staff of board-certified general internists is committed to providing high quality patient care and teaching. There is an excellent attending-to-resident ratio, which promotes timely feedback, discussion and review of cases. Approximately 20 referral subspecialty clinics are available to assist in patient evaluation and management and to serve as a teaching resource for our residents. The residents interface with certified nurse practitioners, physician assistants and case managers.

At the beginning of each clinic session, there is a case-based discussion of common ambulatory problems based on the Yale Ambulatory Conference series. Reference articles and case related questions are presented for the residents to review the week prior to the clinic session. Approximately 40 ambulatory conditions are covered including management of common office orthopedic problems, ophthalmology topics, and common medical issues likely to be encountered in the general internist's office.

A faculty member from the Wilkes University Nesbitt College of Pharmacy provides guidance and teaching to the residents in clinic on such issues as pharmacokinetics and pharmacotherapeutics. The pharmacy faculty member is also available by consultation to meet with patients to provide education and review medical regimens.

The core of the ambulatory training is offered at St. Luke's Union Station, a new facility conveniently located on Bethlehem's historic south side in close proximity to St. Luke's Hospital - Bethlehem Campus. The health center features state-of-the-art examination rooms and a teaching conference room with multiple computer stations to provide easy access to medical records and on-line references such as "Up-to-Date." St. Luke's Union Station also offers dental, pediatric, physical therapy and wound care services.

Night Call

On the general medicine teaching service, the resident is on-call every fourth night. The resident on this service has either Saturday or Sunday off each week. Call on the critical care service is every fourth night. On the other medicine subspecialty services, the resident takes medicine-call approximately once a week. The resident is excused by noon on the post-call day. There is short call during the ob/gyn elective and surgery elective. There is no call on the emergency medicine rotation. On the emergency medicine rotation, the resident works 14, ten-hour shifts per month.

Sample Curriculum