Medicine
Medicine rotations include twenty months of direct patient care, where the resident serves as the primary decision-maker in the patients' care. The four hospitals house a total of approximately 750 medicine service beds. The patient population of each hospital is distinct, providing a broad educational base. On Wishard, the V.A. and the Methodist service medicine teams, residents admit patients from their own continuity clinics or the emergency room. These services provide primary care for a wide range of adult illnesses, with less common conditions seen in proportion to their general representation in the population. On University and Methodist subspecialty services, teams treat patients who have complex specialized medical problems allowing residents to gain focused experience within the subspecialty and interact daily with experts in that field.
Thirty-three percent of the medicine training is outpatient-based. The medicine ambulatory block months combine general medicine and subspecialty outpatient activities with urgent care services. These two months offer opportunities in areas such as gynecology, neurology, sports medicine, occupational medicine and the range of internal medicine subspecialties. A one-month block rotation in geriatrics addresses care for the elderly at home and in long-term care facilities.
Medical intensive care unit experience is provided as three rotations (one in the intern block) at Methodist, University, the VA or Wishard Hospital. Consultative skills are acquired during consult electives. Medicine emergency room rotations (one during year 2 and another in years 3 or 4) allow residents primary responsibility for both the provision of emergent care and the determination of patients' need for hospital admission. The Wishard and Methodist Emergency Departments are very busy sites and residents treat patients with a variety of urgent and emergent conditions.
Residents choose six medicine electives from a variety of offerings. Curricula for these rotations emphasize skills important in the practice of internal medicine.