The academic year commences with the Boot-Camp lecture series. This lecture series is only for PGY1’s and is an introduction to common topics including disease processes that starting residents need to re-familiarize themselves with. Topics such as Resident Wellness (burnout/depression), Quality Improvement, Patient Safety, EKG review and case presentations will also be included during this series.
Residents will then participate in the year-long noon core conference series that takes place alongside the Internal Medicine residents and covers the breadth of Internal Medicine and related specialties. These lectures are presented locally by program faculty. Some specialized topics (such as transplant) may be presented by other experts live or via teleconference. PowerPoint presentations are posted on-line, and some lectures are videotaped for later review by residents. In addition to the core conference series, a number of other conferences are held periodically at Mather. When residents are on their ambulatory month, they participate in a special ambulatory didactic program conducted at the practice site.
In addition to lectures, residents are given web-based modules for a number of different topics, including Patient Hand-offs, Quality Improvement, Residents as Teachers, Medical Record Documentation, Sleep Deprivation, Resident Intimidation, etc. These modules are done at the resident’s own pace – the program tracks their progress.
Transitional Year residents will attend the monthly journal club where they will develop and demonstrate the skills to critically analyze the validity and reliability and assess the strength of the evidence in the medical literature. All residents at Mather participate in quality improvement projects throughout their training period.
The program also employs simulation for small-group instruction (such as team skills in interdisciplinary mock code sessions). Residents attend “All-Resident Conferences” several times per year, which address topics that, because of their focus on competencies such as professionalism or systems-based practice, have cross-disciplinary components.
The program employs the following conferences, all of which are required for residents and all of which involve faculty:
- Morning Report
- Noon core curriculum conference
- Weekly Hospital Grand Rounds
- Monthly EBM Conference/Journal Club
- Monthly Morbidity & Mortality Conference
- Monthly Department of Medicine Case Conference
- Monthly Critical Care Conference
- Monthly Rapid Response Committee
- Monthly Quality and Safety Conference
- Individual rotations may have their own lectures
The core conference curriculum includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:
- Adolescent Medicine
- Ambulatory
- Cardiovascular
- Endocrine
- Evidence-based Medicine
- Fatigue Mitigation
- General Medicine
- Geriatrics
- Gastroenterology
- Health Systems
- Hematology-Oncology
- Infectious Diseases
- Nephrology
- Personal Finance: Financial Planning
- Pulmonary/Critical Care
- Quality and Safety
- Radiology
- Research Methodology
- Rheumatology