Didactics

Didactics are fundamental to any residency program, and ours provides ample learning opportunities to prepare residents for both board exams and career. Residents are expected to attend all medicine sessions while rotating on medicine and likewise all pediatrics sessions while rotating on pediatrics. However, residents are welcome to attend any of the didactics sessions at any time.

Morning/Noon Report

The post-call medicine wards team presents patient cases selected from the previous night's admissions during morning/noon report. These reports are discussion-oriented, evidenced-based, and include review of important elements from the history and physical, laboratory findings, EKGs, and imaging studies. Faculty are present to lead discussion, help residents expand their list of different diagnoses, offer suggestions regarding management, and provide teaching points. Principles of medicine seen frequently on board exams are emphasized. On pediatrics, interesting past patient cases are presented daily by residents or chief residents in group or classic didactic sessions.

Core Conferences / Grand Rounds

At Children's Hospital, daily noon conferences consist of faculty-delivered didactics, question-and-answer sessions, journal article reviews, case presentations, and professionalism forums. These sessions concentrate on fundamental clinical competencies and are designed to expose residents to the entire breadth of each specialty over the span of their residency career. Grand rounds, which are presented weekly by medicine and pediatrics, provide residents with exposure to both high-level concepts and cutting edge developments.

MKSAP Lectures / Peds Board Review

Every Monday, there is a lecture on MKSAP topics presented by the respective clinical faculty. Directly following this lecture is the presentation and discussion of questions from the MKSAP question bank. The purpose of these lectures is to help residents go through MKSAP content each year while also gathering practical clinical knowledge from specialist faculty. There is also a pediatrics board review meeting every month at Children's Hospital which covers all of MedStudy over the course of 3 years. All residents receive MKSAP and MedStudy at no cost to help with board prep.

Ambulatory & Hospitalist Track Conferences

For residents with a strong interest in ambulatory or hospitalist medicine, there are tracks available to which the resident may commit. These tracks are run by dedicated ambulatory and hospital-based faculty, respectively. Residents in these tracks are required to prepare didactic sessions which they present to fellow residents and faculty members, for critique and open discussion. Residents not in these tracks are welcome to attend these conferences, which are very informative and thought provoking.

Journal Club

-Once monthly on medicine, two residents present contemporary articles from leading medical journals. Residents and faculty then discuss the scientific validity of the study as well as its applicability to the everyday practice of medicine. Similar presentations are made monthly at Children's Hospital.

-Med/Peds also hosts its own journal club once monthly which consists of either a resident-delivered didactics session or literature review -- special attention is given to topics that are unique to Med-Peds or that pose a challenge in that the management is very different for pediatric and adult populaitons.