Program Overview

 

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

All inpatient rotations take place at Capital Health Regional Medical Center, in geographically assigned teams. During general internal medicine rotations (GIM), residents are assigned to either telemetry or general medical floor. Each GIM team consists of 2-3 senior residents and three interns.

Critical care teams are comprised of three senior residents and two to three interns.

Resident teams are supervised by internal medicine faculty 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.

Each of the three years of residency is divided into 13 four-week blocks. Our residency program utilizes the New Innovations© service, 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 residents' 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.

 

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Continuity Clinic

Residents receive their ambulatory experience at the Family Health Center (FHC) located at the Mercer Campus. Residents spend one half day per week in the clinic for their longitudinal continuity clinic experience and are assigned additional clinic sessions during elective months to meet the 130-clinic session requirement. 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 1:2.

 

GIM rotation

The inpatient general internal medicine (GIM) 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 will be the primary provider of care to their patients, under the supervision of attending physicians. Some supervising attending physicians will be general internists, and other sub-specialists. Many supervising physicians will be acting as attendings of record, while others will be consultants. All together, there will be many opportunities to interact with many physicians from a wide array of training backgrounds. Teams will be assigned geographically. Multidisciplinary Rounds led by faculty are held daily, Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - noon.

 

Critical Care Rotations

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 the attending intensivist, a pulmonary and critical care attending rounding on all medical teaching service (MTS) and private patients daily. Also, teaching consultants will be involved in critical care cases, and will supervise the portions of the case relevant to their specialty. Multidisciplinary teaching rounds will be led by the attending intensivist between 8 a.m. - noon during weekdays. The intensivist is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week by phone for consultation.

 

Ambulatory Consult Service Rotation

The ambulatory medicine rotation provides residents with the opportunity to obtain experiences in a variety of venues around the hospital, including the outpatient specialty clinics, the medical consultation service and the laboratory. Subspecialty experience is provided during elective and ambulatory consult service blocks.

 

Other Services Include:

• Easy access to computers
• Internet service on all computers in the hospital
• Photocopying and facsimile terminals though out the hospital
• Digitalized web-based radiology system
• Computer-based medication order system
• Computerized patient record system provides access to patient discharge summaries, consults, prior records, laboratory and pathology reports.
• Dedicated case managers and social workers for each nursing unit to coordinate patient care with residents and attending physicians.