Department of Medicine

Fellowship Curriculum

The fellowship program has four components: (1) an inpatient medicine core curriculum, (2) scholarly activities, (3) electives and opportunities for special focus, and (4) clinical research or medical education training.

Inpatient Medicine Core Curriculum

The core curriculum includes training experiences in various sites of medical care, including the general medical wards, the medical step-down unit, and the intensive care unit. The curriculum helps physicians learn the skills they need to provide high-quality health care, promote effective communication, use resources wisely, and use evidence-based medicine. The training focuses on the following:

• Advanced clinical skills in inpatient medicine.
• Teaching skills.
• End-of-life and palliative care.
• Patient safety and quality improvement.
• Cost-effectiveness, health care financing, and utilization management.
• Effective communication (physician-patient communication, physician-physician communication, and communication systems linking to the outpatient setting).
• Medical consultation.
• Medical ethics.
• Coding, documentation, and risk management.
• Critical review of the literature and evidence-based medicine.

The curriculum is delivered through an integrated program of supervised inpatient attending and consultative rotations, along with seminars, workshops, and didactic lectures.

Scholarly Activities

The Division of General Internal Medicine will provide mentoring and resources so that fellows are able to design and complete a scholarly project. The project may serve as the basis for a paper and presentation to a national meeting. Projects generally consist of:

• A clinical case or a patient safety or quality improvement project.
• A research study, typically focusing on a clinical or health service issue (this project can be an extension of ongoing work by faculty in the division or may be a new study).
• A curriculum development project for fellows interested in medical education.

Electives and Opportunities for Special Focus

Electives are available in many specific areas, and they allow fellows to develop an area of focus. The focus may be important for fellows who wish to design an individualized curriculum. Examples of electives are:

• Intensive care (in medical, surgical, or other intensive care units).
• Medical procedures.
• Pain service.
• Quality improvement.
• Palliative care.
• Urgent care.
• Curriculum development.

Clinical Research or Medical Education Training

Fellows enroll in an academic program that leads to a Master of Science in Clinical Research or a Master of Science in Medical Education. The choice of program will depend on each fellow's plans for a career as a clinician-researcher or clinician-educator. Each master's program requires 30 credits of coursework over the 2-year duration of the fellowship. Both programs are sponsored by the Institute for Clinical Research Education. For details about these degree-granting programs, click here.