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Program Overview

The Internal Medicine Residency Program is sponsored by Capital Health, a two-hospital health system based in Mercer County, NJ.

Inpatient rotations take place at Capital Health Regional Medical Center and Capital Health Medical Center - Hopewell. General Internal Medicine (GIM) Teams are assigned geographically, for telemetry (TELE) and general medical floor (GMF) rotations. Critical care teams are comprised of three senior residents and two interns at our RMC campus, and two seniors and three interns at our Hopewell campus.

Resident teams are supervised by internal medicine faculty or academic hospitalists on GIM rotations, an intensivist in the critical care specialty, and sub-specialists during elective rotations. Teaching and management rounds are conducted daily by faculty, academic hospitalists and intensivists.

Each of the three years of residency is divided into 13 four-week blocks. Our residency program utilizes the New Innovations© Residency Management Suite, which allows our residents and faculty to access their daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly block schedules at any time. The annual master schedule for each of the resident’s rotations is distributed in June before the academic year begins. Individual resident's schedules vary but are adjusted to maintain a balance of experience and fair distribution of workload over the three years of residency. The program utilizes an “X+Y” schedule model, having residents spend 4 weeks on inpatient rotations followed by 1 week at our ambulatory clinic.

General Internal Medicine (TELE and GMF Teams)

Inpatient general internal medicine rotations represent the largest quantity of assigned time in a resident's schedule, and therefore, is one of the most significant opportunities for gaining knowledge and experience. Residents are the primary provider of care to their patients, under the supervision of attending physicians. Supervising attending physicians may be general internists or sub-specialists. Many supervising physicians act as attendings of record, while others are consultants. Altogether, there are many opportunities to interact with physicians from a wide array of training backgrounds. Multidisciplinary Rounds led by faculty are held daily.

Critical Care

The critical care rotation is designed to expose residents to the most seriously ill patients in the hospital, with a wide variety of cardiac, pulmonary, infectious and other multisystem diseases. It is an experience that demands particular attention to cultivating skills in patient care and medical knowledge, but the other competencies are highlighted during this rotation as well. Residents may view the critical care rotation as a time when they may bring all their skills to bear simultaneously in the care of the sickest patients in the hospital. Supervision in the critical care areas is by an attending intensivist, board certified in pulmonary/critical care medicine and rounding on all medical teaching service (MTS) and private patients daily. Teaching consultants are also involved in critical care cases to supervise the portions of the case relevant to their specialty. Multidisciplinary teaching rounds are led by the attending intensivist daily. The intensivist is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to supervise residents directly or indirectly by telephone. Residents rotate in both our RMC and Hopewell ICU.

Continuity Clinic

Residents receive their ambulatory experience at the Family Health Center (FHC) or at the East Trenton Clinic (ETC). The residents maintain their own panel of patients and serve as their primary physicians; caring for their acute and chronic problems and maintaining their preventive health. The residents do not have in-patient responsibilities while in the clinic. Residents are closely supervised in the clinic maintaining a faculty to resident ratio is 1:4. The program utilizes a “4+1” schedule/clinic model, allowing for 4 weeks of uninterrupted inpatient experience followed by one week of ambulatory rotation. Residents also have the opportunity to attend a “micro-learning experience” in the form of a day-long rotation in different specialties.

Other resources provided:

  • Dedicated case managers and social workers for each nursing unit to coordinate patient care with residents and attending physicians
  • Ancillary services such as IV teams, phlebotomists, EKG/X-ray/ultrasound technicians and transport teams
  • Computerized patient record system provides access to patient discharge summaries, consults, prior records, laboratory and pathology reports
  • Digitalized web-based radiology system
  • Computerized Pharmacy Order Entry System (CPOE)
  • Internet service on all computers in the hospital and Wi-Fi
  • Copy, scan, and fax availability throughout the hospital
  • Cerner EMR in-hospital, Athena EMR in outpatient clinic
  • HIPAA compliant secure text messaging

In addition to Clinical experience, the Internal Medicine Residency has a strong didactic curriculum providing a well-rounded education for internists in training.