Educational Conferences

Ambulatory Block Education Thursdays

Every Thursday morning all of the residents in ambulatory block come together for group learning and breakfast on "Education Thursdays." During these half-day sessions residents participate in a variety of high yield educational activities. The curriculum is designed to ensure all residents have exposure to each topic over the course of their three years of training. Curricular highlights include: ambulatory morning report, EBM training, case-based small group learning with an emphasis on ambulatory illness diagnosis and management, physical exam, communication, and procedural skills sessions, health equity curriculum, and quality improvement/patient safety conferences.

Senior Resident Morning Report

Every weekday morning at both Strong Memorial Hospital and Highland Hospital, second- and third-year residents on hospital medicine and inpatient elective rotations meet for an hour to discuss two recently admitted patients. Each case is presented by the admitting resident. As the case unfolds, the residents discuss differential diagnosis, work-up, and management strategies. Senior resident morning report is facilitated by the inpatient Chief Resident, with the program director, department chair, and a select group of faculty educators also on hand to share teaching points. Breakfast is always served.

Intern Report

Every Thursday at noon, all first-year residents assigned to inpatient and ambulatory rotations meet for one hour to discuss one or two patients with the Chief Resident, the program director, and other key faculty members. Patients are presented by the intern who initially evaluated them in the inpatient or ambulatory setting. The format is similar to senior resident morning report.

Inpatient Attending Rounds - Strong Memorial Hospital

Attending rounds on all inpatient services at Strong Memorial Hospital are combined teaching and management rounds. On the hospital medicine teaching service, each resident team rounds daily with their hospitalist attending, seeing most patients at the bedside. History and physical findings are reviewed and a proposed management plan for each patient is presented by the residents for discussion with the attending and the patient. Teaching focuses on bedside skills and on basic science and clinical knowledge and reasoning relevant to each patient's unique situation. Similar teaching/management rounds with the appropriate subspecialty attending physicians are held daily on the inpatient hematology-oncology, Heart Center, and MICU services.

Inpatient Teaching Rounds - Highland Hospital

As smaller hospitals, Highland and FF Thompson hospitals both offer complementary clinical and educational experiences for residents. Resident teams are paired with hospitalists and conduct daily bedside rounds similar to at SMH.

Unique features of the Highland Hospital experience include significant exposure to geriatric care presence (as a Geriatric Fracture Center of Excellence), deliberate emphasis on clinical reasoning at morning report and noon conference, and smaller resident teams (typically 1-resident, 1-intern, 1-2student teams).

FF Thompson offers experience caring for a more rural patient population in a community hospital with more limited sub-specialty resources. During daily rounds, residents discuss common medical conditions, while developing skill in triage, utilization of telehealth consultations, and facilitating hospital to hospital transfers. Another unique educational experience at FF Thompson is resident involvement in acute stroke management.

Noon Conferences

Our recently revised inpatient noon conference curriculum includes weekly 1 ½ hour-long training-level specific sessions (one day for interns, another day for senior residents) with protected educational time. Residents from Highland Hospital and F.F. Thompson, as well as those on ambulatory and outpatient rotations, will join in person or via Zoom conferencing.  Our summer sessions for interns include coverage of common inpatient emergencies such as fever, chest pain, shortness of breath and altered mental status as well as organizational and communication skill development sessions; the curriculum progresses to cover a core inpatient medicine curriculum over the remainder of the academic year.  Similarly, our senior resident curriculum focuses on advanced emergency scenarios over the summer including advanced code management, tracheostomy and tube management as well as professional-development topics such as team leadership, teaching on rounds and learner feedback.  Our senior resident core curriculum spans the course of two academic years with exposure to core inpatient IM topics from all subspecialty areas.

The remaining weekday noon hours are dedicated to monthly EKG conferences, Morbidity & Mortality conferences and “Professor Rounds”, in which a master subspecialty teacher is presented a case in their field as an unknown that they “think through out loud” with resident involvement. Additionally, a Residency Program business meeting is held monthly at Strong, with Zoom access for those at other clinical sites, so residents can discuss issues and concerns with the Program Directors and Chief Residents.  There is also a monthly noon conference dedicate to our wellness curriculum, including topics such as mindfulness, resiliency and financial health.  A substantial lunch is provided to all residents five days per week. 

Medical Grand Rounds

Department of Medicine Grand Rounds occurs Tuesday mornings at Highland Hospital and Tuesday at noon at Strong Memorial Hospital. Local and national presenters teach clinically relevant and cutting-edge topics.