Philosophy of House Officer Training

The Residency training is organized around several key principles:

Patient care, education, and research are the critical missions of the department. The three components of our mission are interdependent and fundamental to the training program. The strength of the residency training program derives from our high standards of excellence in patient care, education and discovery. In each of these areas, we seek to develop programs that are continually responsive to learning opportunities, challenging, and supportive.

Clinical experience is the resident’s most effective teacher. All clinical activities in the program are based on the precept of supervised decision-making responsibility with graded autonomy. The breadth of patient population served by the various institutions offers an unparalleled experience in primary, secondary, and tertiary care medicine.

Resident training must be diverse, flexible and individualized. Drawing upon the resources and missions of the diverse and integrated clinical settings, the program offers an exceptional mix of clinical, educational, and research opportunities. Our core curriculum provides each individual with a solid foundation in Internal Medicine. Each resident then builds on that foundation through the use of electives, interactive teaching sessions and individual research and scholarly experiences.

House officers have the opportunity to collaborate with faculty in the planning process for residency training, thereby shaping their program. Residency training programs must continually evolve to meet new challenges and opportunities while complying with regulatory standards. Within the Primary Care Training Program (PCTP), the PCTP residents meet with the program director periodically to review the curriculum, evaluate and enhance the experiences to tailor them to the residents’ interests.

A training program must offer personal as well as professional support. Residency training is exciting, challenging, and immensely rewarding. Our program leadership and faculty enthusiastically nurture the growth and development of residents as individual human beings, not just as professionals. A long-standing tradition of the residency training program, the peer support among residents- the enthusiastic and generous support of residents for their colleagues, enrich the training community and create meaningful bonds among residents. The faculty work diligently to foster this spirit of community through their actions and their example.

The faculty and residents adhere strongly to the highest standards of medical professionalism. The residents and faculty work on a daily basis to exemplify the departmental values of excellence, curiosity, service, generosity, professionalism, mutual respect, diversity, collegiality, and commitment to the public good.