 The general principles overriding the residency
program are:
- Education comes first; and
- Residency should be an enjoyable experience.
The program is driven by education – not by service needs – for
all of its residents (12 categorical internal medicine per year and
four preliminary interns). The foundation of the program, which is
fully accredited with the ACGME and The American Osteopathic Association,
is its written curriculum, a document that provides the specific
educational goals for each of the topics relevant to internal medicine
training. Each topic will be covered during the three-year training
period either by direct patient experience or by didactic sessions.
The strength of our program resides in the spectrum
of patients and the diversity of the attendings to which our residents
are exposed. The combination of community primary care physicians
and private specialists complements the full-time faculty. Unlike
the prototypical university urban medical center in which the overwhelming
majority of patients are admitted through the emergency department,
the patient population cared for by our residents represents a
balanced mixture of private and service patients.
Our program also offers the house staff the resources
of four on-site, fully accredited sub-specialty training programs.
These include fellowships in Cardiology, Nephrology, Hematology/Oncology
and Pulmonary Critical Care. Fellows in these four subspecialty
areas interact with residents rotating through their respective
consultation services, the Intensive Care Unit, the Coronary Care
Unit, Telemetry Unit, and the Oncology inpatient service. Applications
have been submitted to the ACGME for additional fellowships in
Geriatrics, Infectious Diseases and Interventional Cardiology,
with anticipated start dates of July 2005 or 2006. In addition,
fellows actively participate in teaching and supervision of house
staff on both an inpatient and outpatient basis, and facilitate
house staff participation in research activities within their subspecialty
divisions.
 During
the first two years, the resident will spend the bulk of his/her
time rotating through the general medical floor teams. A teaching
attending is assigned to each team and is the physician in charge
of the unassigned patients who are admitted to that team. The teaching
attending supervises the housestaff in the care of these patients
and conducts regular teaching rounds. In addition, the floor teams
will care for private patients who are admitted to the teaching
service at the request of the private attending who provides the
supervision of the housestaff in the care of his/her patients.
On Sunday through Thursday nights, a night float
team admits patients to the teaching services from 8 p.m. to 7
a.m. These night admissions are presented at Morning Report and
assigned to the floor teams. This system permits us to control
the flow of admissions and ensures that the education of the resident
remains the priority of the program. Caps are established for admissions
per day and total census for each PGY 1 and PGY 2 resident according
to ACGME guidelines and these caps are enforced. This system also
allows us to offer a favorable call schedule in which the floor
teams spend only Friday and Saturday nights in the hospital.
The first two years are also supplemented with experiences
in MICU, CCU, Emergency Department, and certain subspecialties.
A sample rotation schedule is provided in the Curriculum
section.
 Ambulatory
experiences are considered to be extremely important in the education
of our residents. In addition to the weekly continuity clinic experience
at one of several primary care sites, residents are assigned to
two block ambulatory rotations in the first year and one in the
second year. These blocks permit a rotation through clinics in
both medical and non-medical specialties.
The PGY 3-year includes rotations through all the
specialties of internal medicine. The third-year resident develops
skills through consultation service and specialty outpatient experiences.
We recognize the importance of certain administrative
and non-medical education throughout the residency. Formal education
in medical ethics, medical economics, utilization management, quality
management, and legal aspects of medicine is provided throughout
the residency.
 Our
program is relatively small and nearly all core rotations take
place at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. We are proud of the
friendly, intimate atmosphere which we can offer. We also pay careful
attention to the human aspects of residency training by providing
a favorable call schedule, meals while on call, and comfortable,
convenient sleeping quarters with a modern, well-equipped lounge.
The affiliation with UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School
also provides residents the opportunity to participate in educational
experiences, orientations, and retreats of this top medical school
and leading health care facility.
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