Training at The Christ Hospital offers the resident a breadth of education and experience in caring for patients in the outpatient setting. Over 33% of our curriculum is in the outpatient arena. In moving our training out of the hospital, we are keeping up with the practice of Internal Medicine as it evolves. Residents will gain experience treating patients in both a hospital-based continuity clinic and a nursing home environment.
The Christ Hospital Medical Clinic offers you an excellent opportunity to gain experience in outpatient medicine. Each resident spends one afternoon a week seeing patients in the newly renovated clinic. Residents follow their patients on a continuity basis.
The clinic has a full-time medical director who supervises all patient care and educational activities. There are two attending physicians to precept residents at each clinic session. This provides ample time for case discussion and focused education. Registered nurses, medical assistants and unit secretaries provide excellent ancillary support.
Residents are encouraged and instructed in the performance of various outpatient procedures. These procedures include – but are not limited to – joint aspiration and injection, soft tissue injection, Pap smear and pelvic exam, removal of skin lesions.
In the PGY-2 and PGY-3 years, residents also spend one half-day per month at the Maple Knoll Retirement Village. This community clinic provides experience for residents in geriatric medicine and the specific needs of nursing home residents.
The Christ Hospital maintains an excellent library that is part of the Regional Medical Library Program. This library houses 5,000 volumes and 8,000 bound journals with subscriptions to 350 current journals. Materials not found in the library may be quickly obtained through interlibrary loans. MEDLINE searches and photocopying are available to the residents free of charge.
Workstations are available in both the resident office and lounge. These are supported by up-to-date software and allow word processing, presentation preparation, database applications and spreadsheet applications. There is additional software for medical education in the office. The hardware and software are updated periodically as needed.
Every resident receives a new Palm handheld upon arrival to the program. These have the latest software and can connect wireless via Bluetooth to the computers in the resident lounge.
There is a dedicated computer system in the Outpatient Clinic with Internet access and a suite of educational and productivity software tailored to learning in the outpatient setting.
The Christ Hospital provides mentorship and a variety of experiences for the Internal Medicine resident to fulfill the ACGME requirements for scholarly activity. All senior residents participate in the teaching program by presenting in-depth, case-based discussions of clinically relevant topics or interesting cases. Many residents have also presented posters at regional and national conferences. In addition, many of our residents are involved with original research projects.