Program Structure
Quinnipiac University Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine/St. Vincent’s Medical Center graduate medical education programs offer a variety of settings and opportunities for residents to practice, including ambulatory care, in-patient services and critical care.
Like many programs our internal medicine program has transitioned to an “x+y” model which helps provide consistent scheduling of both inpatient and outpatient experiences throughout training.
Inpatient Medicine Service
Patients are admitted to the teaching services with a full spectrum of medical illnesses. Teams consist of one or two medical students, one or two interns, one resident and a supervising attending. A night float service covers for evenings and nights. Residents are responsible for the diagnostic and therapeutic management of their patients. They work closely with the attending physicians and they are responsible for choosing therapy, consulting specialists and ensuring patients get appropriate, cost-effective care from admission through discharge. Sub-specialists, clinical pharmacologists, radiologists, and pathologists are available to discuss patient management and to help interpret test results. St. Vincent's medical center is fortunate to have excellent ancillary services. Though developing proficiency in common bedside procedures is essential, interns and residents are not responsible for routine procedures, such as drawing blood or starting IVs and thus have more time to concentrate on managing their patients and on learning.
Didactics during these months include weekly Intern Report and Resident Report for senior residents in addition to Noon Conference and teaching rounds.
Intensive Care Unit
The Intensive Care Unit consists of two or three residents, one intern, and one supervising intensivist. All of the house staff round with an intensivist every morning and afternoon, with pharmacists often participating in these rounds. A house staff night medicine team also covers the ICU.
House staff care for their patients through a multidisciplinary approach, with consultants from surgical and medical subspecialties participating in the management of patients.
Residents manage critically ill patients with multi-organ system disease and use a full range of state-of-the-art technology for treatment, with the expectation that they become experts with ventilators, hemodynamic monitoring, and central lines.
In the Intensive Care Unit, residents have the opportunity to perform intubation, arterial line placement, central line placement, and other procedures.
Ambulatory Care
Our residents work in a variety of ambulatory care settings, including the Family Health Center (FHC), subspecialty clinics including geriatrics, urgent care, and private offices of physicians in the community.
Residents, both preliminary and categorical, have weekly continuity clinic days. This rotation includes managing office visits, returning phone calls, and following up on test reports.
Additionally, residents have ambulatory rotations, such as the FHC rotation, which gives them exposure to the day-to-day activities involved in primary care practice. These rotations allow residents to build a robust panel of patients, which they will follow during their time in the program.
Specialty Care
During electives, residents work in private practices and in the sub specialty clinics at the FHC. Residents receive extensive exposure to outpatient management in the fields of rheumatology, infectious disease, cardiology, nephrology, gastroenterology, neurology, endocrinology, psychiatry and dermatology as well as training in the outpatient surgical subspecialty setting.
Geriatrics
Second year residents participate in a geriatrics rotation. Residents learn comprehensive care of the elderly, including geriatric assessment and the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach. They work within the community and accompany geriatricians to patients' homes, learn how to deliver care to the homebound, and gain experience applying healthcare services outside of the traditional medical establishment.
Electives
Our residents have ample opportunity to do electives in their areas of interest. St. Vincent's Medical Center offers the following electives:
- Allergy/Immunology
- Anesthesiology
- Cardiology
- Dermatology
- Diagnostic Radiology
- Endocrinology
- Gastroenterology
- Geriatric Medicine
- Hematology/Oncology
- Infectious Disease
- Nephrology
- Neurology
- Orthopedic Surgery
- Ophthalmology
- Pain Management
- Palliative Care
- PSQI
- Psychiatry
- Pulmonary Medicine
- Radiation/Oncology
- Rheumatology
- Wound Care
Residents may arrange for rotations at other medical centers including international, research or clinical electives. Some of our residents have participated in medical mission trips to underserved nations as well.
Teaching & Conferences
Our residency program has a comprehensive curriculum incorporating didactic sessions, case-based discussions, supervised patient care, and resident involvement in interdisciplinary conferences and in several other educational activities. Each rotation has an individual curriculum.
The didactic curriculum covers clinical medicine, including internal medicine, subspecialty topics, the practice of medicine with emphasis on the American healthcare system, the economics of medicine, interpersonal skills, the importance of the patient-physician relationship, and research methods. In addition to lectures from St. Vincent’s faculty, we invite speakers from Columbia University, Yale University, Quinnipiac University, Hartford Hospital and many other hospitals and academic centers in the area.
Some of our teaching venues are listed below:
- Noon Conference
- Resident Report
- Medical Grand Rounds
- Multispecialty Conference with Radiology
- Morbidity and Mortality Conference
- Journal Club
- Ambulatory Conference
- Intern Case Conference
- Board Review
- Jeopardy
- Schwartz Rounds
Medical Student Teaching
A critical opportunity that our Quinnipiac-sponsored program offers involves working with our medical students. Medical students from Quinnipiac work with us during their third year clerkships, their fourth year sub-internships and various electives. We expect all of our residents to develop strong teaching skills to help provide the students with an inspiring experience that will create a lifelong impact on their careers. This experience not only benefits the students but enhances the learning of our residents and provides them with teaching skills which they can bring to careers as clinician educators and to other teaching roles. Each year, one of our residents is selected by the medical students for a teaching award which we present at graduation, recognizing the resident for dedication to student education as well as serving as a role model for the students.
Resident Wellness
Resident wellness is of paramount importance for our program and is approached in several ways. We have a Wellness Committee which regularly and plans a variety of off-campus events for our residents. We also have a Wellness Room in our Resident Lounge to provide residents with a quiet, private place where they can rest, meditate, read, listen to music or chat with a colleague. Resident wellness is also a high priority for our institution, for our medical school, and for Hartford HealthCare. A variety of resources are available to all residents to support wellness.