The Career Development and Research Office understands the importance of supporting and guiding residency and fellowship applicants and trainees from the time of the application process until they can put their foot on the right ground at the start of their training. As part of that process, setting the new interns up for a strong start during their first year of residency training constitutes a completion of the process that led them to being selected as residents in their programs.
Hence, guiding materials are being developed for that. Currently, the “Intern Survival Guide” project is being developed, with already multiple guiding and educational videos being prepared to assist new interns gain understanding of the nature of residency in the US. Those videos and other activities are based on the 5 core competencies of ACGME that residency programs follow and use as a guide to train and evaluate their interns.
The Planned Core Activities (Not Inclusive of All Activities):
Patient Care
– Data gathering: short video series going through basic history taking, physical diagnosis skills and documentation
– Concepts of pre-rounding, rounds and post-rounds
- A day in the inpatient medical ward
- Keeping your EHR neat: progress note, discharge note, etc.
- Make a stellar presentation during rounds
- A day in the clinic
- EBM physical exam
- Basics of point of care ultrasound
- What cost effective care really means
Medical Knowledge
– Video series explaining the most common sources of knowledge during residency. (MKSAP UpToDate… etc). We also need to emphasize the culture of lifelong learning / CME.
– Didactics: video series to explain different topics (interpretation of diagnostic studies, basic bread and butter topics in medicine etc)
- Yes, prepare for the board from now!
- Clinical pearls series (CHF exacerbation, pneumonia, etc.)
Practice-Based Learning and Improvement
– Emphasize the concept of self-assessment/awareness to guide continuous improvement.
– An essential skill will be literature review and appraisal. Keeping up with the latest guidelines etc.
- Resources for EBM and how to get answers to your clinical questions
- Thinking about your research and quality improvement (QI) projects.
- Seeking and receiving feedback
Interpersonal and Communication Skills
– Video series to introduce common structures of the residents’ teams. Tips when communicating with attendings, nursing and ancillary staff
- What is “good team player” really means
Professionalism
– Impressions, how to make the best first impression
– Ethics, respecting diversity.
- What professionalism really means
Systems-Based Practice
– Understand the basics of the US healthcare system
– Understand basic concepts about Medicare / medicaid and health insurance in the US
– Basics of discharge planning. Disposition principles and resources.
- How insurance affects patient care
- Your patient is “medically clear” for discharge
- Why you should care about coding and billing