Curriculum and Program Design

Curriculum

PGY-1

The internship year provides you with a foundation of knowledge and practical experience. This is accomplished by making you the primary physician in many care settings, by establishing basic skills and refining them with practice and feedback.The intern is the primary care physician for his or her patients and is the interface between the patient, the family and the medical team. The year is one of intense clinical exposure and education. Increasing responsibility for patient care is assumed as the intern gains experience in an atmosphere of support and guidance. The in-depth exposure to a diverse range of clinical problems provides the ground work of clinical and technical knowledge which will, in the succeeding years of training lead to the development of an efficient, competent and humane physician.

PGY-2

The PGY 2 year is the year you consolidate your skills. You will continue to develop your knowledge base in both the diversity and depth of information related to clinical care. You will develop your clinical skills in higher acuity areas including the Inpatient Floor, Intensive Care Units, and in the Emergency Department.The second-year residents assume a supervisory role, applying their experience to teaching medical students and the interns and to coordinate patient management.

PGY-3

PGY 3 residents are expected to take a leadership role in the teaching and management of the health care team on the inpatient wards and intensive care units, as well as in the primary care ambulatory and emergency room settings. The PL-3s should be active participants and leaders in conferences and ambulatory settings.

Educational Activities

• Grand Rounds are conducted virtually once a week. This conference usually features faculty and guest speakers presenting timely reviews of important clinical and research developments.
• Morbidity and Mortality Conference review clinical outcomes and deaths that have occurred during the preceding month, focusing on correlating clinical impressions with pathologic findings and evaluating opportunities for quality improvement and systems change.
• Resident Core Conferences provide an overview of the diagnosis and management of common general and subspecialty clinical problems and issues such as ethics, teaching, communication, and important social, cultural, and economic aspects of patient care.
• Chief of Service Conferences is interactive discussions of patients currently admitted to the hospital, highlighting important aspects of the history and physical exam, differential diagnosis and management.
• Journal Club focuses on skill development in framing an answerable clinical question, searching EBM databases to locate the evidence, critical appraisal of the evidence, and applying the evidence to patient care.
• Residents as Teachers is a senior resident-led series on “how to teach”.
• Board Review Conferences are monthly, interactive discussions of board-style questions, designed to prepare residents for the American Board of Pediatrics certifying exam.
• Simulation Conferences in the sim lab which offers training in core competencies ex: communication skills, teamwork, mock codes, etc
• Wellness Curriculum includes interactive sessions geared towards the prevention of physician burnout. This occurs every last Friday of the month.
• Intensive board review for PGY 3. Beginning on January each year, 1-hour board review sessions occuring 3 times per week are held, to be attended only by the PGY3 in preparation for the ABP Certifying examinations.
• NEJM Knowledge+. Monthly quizzes are given out to residents utilizing the NEJM Knowledge+ board review question bank.

Research Activities

• Residents are encouraged to identify areas of interest early on residency training and will be assigned mentors with whom they can develop a relationship throughout their training.
• Annually, PGY-1 residents are expected to work on case-reports and PGY-2 & 3 residents are expected to work on a scholarly project and to build on their project from year to year.
• During the Annual Residents/Fellow’s Research Fair, residents work in teams with faculty mentor-ship to identify a topic, obtain their CITI training certificate in the protection of human subjects, submit an abstract, create a poster and present to judges. This is an excellent practice for presentations at national and regional meetings. The posters submitted can be adapted for manuscript publication.
• Research administrative support is provided by the Biomedical Research Alliance of New York (BRANY) and biostatisticians who assist residents with data collection and analysis.