Curriculum

Year One

The first year of residency! Interns spend six to eight months on general medicine floors, one month in the Emergency Department, one to two months in the intensive care unit and have one or two electives. There is a night float and each intern will spend no more than six weeks on the float. Short call (3:30–8 pm) is taken four to five times a month during medicine rotations. While on electives, interns take one weekend call during the month. The night float starts at 8 pm and ends after morning report at 8 am the next day.

Years Two and Three

Senior residents have four to six electives per year, one to three months of ICU/CCU and the remaining months on medicine floors. All senior residents take short call three to four times a month and occasional backup pager call. The senior resident on the ICU service does take overnight call. PGY-2 residents participate in the night float however PGY-3 residents do not. Additionally PGY-3 residents may moonlight and there are both internal and external moonlighting opportunities.

Internal Medicine Residency Overview

Ascension Saint Francis offers you a strong general internal medicine core and outpatient medicine curriculum where you will spend 35 to 40 percent of your time in the ambulatory setting. In addition to general internal medicine, you will gain experience in cardiology, critical care (ICU and CCU), endocrinology, gastroenterology, geriatrics, hematology/oncology, infectious diseases, nephrology, pulmonary medicine and rheumatology. Many non-medicine specialty opportunities are also available as electives or as part of your ambulatory rotations.

You will spend three years in a community outpatient clinic following a panel of patients dedicated to you. In your third year, you will also be in an attending physician's office of your choosing. A dedicated faculty of 194 physicians is available to assist you in hands-on clinical experience with patients from a variety of socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds. A diverse patient population ranging from the medically underserved in South Evanston to the more affluent residents of the North Shore will give you an opportunity to encounter common and uncommon illnesses in proportions that will greatly assist you in future practice.

There is a research month for PGY-2s and PGY-3s for full time research with no clinical responsibilities. This gives residents who are interested in fellowships and academic careers to start and finish projects. We have statisticians on board to help, along with sincere and dedicated mentors for research. Numerous grants are available for residents for their respective projects. Our residents regularly participate in regional and national conferences like ACP and SGIM. We have numerous awards for posters and research projects.

A Day in a Resident’s Life

A typical day at Ascension Saint Francis starts at 7 am with an hour-long morning report. First-year residents meet Tuesdays and Thursdays and primarily discuss the admissions from the previous evening. Second- and third-years meet Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and discuss interesting cases and topics in subspecialty medicine, ambulatory, general internal medicine, ethics and palliative care. Interns are encouraged to attend resident morning report.

CME lectures are presented twice each week at 8 am, a Clinical Pathological Conference once a month and monthly "Institutional Curriculum" lectures cover topics such as sleep deprivation and stress reduction, patient safety, practice management, cultural sensitivity and effective communication, sometimes in very innovative ways! All these conferences are protected learning time — nurses know to page residents only for true emergencies.

Then the residents hit the floors. On general internal medicine, teaching rounds are conducted with an attending physician between 10 and 11:30 am, three days per week. On other rotations, residents will round with their attendings, see inpatient consults, attend clinics and participate in procedures. We have three hospitalist teams on the floor that see patients and round with the hospitalists.

Conferences are held daily between noon and 1 pm. Afternoons are spent on the floors, in subspecialty clinics, at the continuity clinic (access at Ascension Saint Francis) or, in the third year, in a private attending physician's office.

Residents will also spend time in our simulation lab, giving them the opportunity to learn and practice critical procedures before working on patients. Recent acquisitions include a central line simulator with articulating head, Sono Man, Trauma Man, difficult airway simulator, and shoulder and knee joint injection simulators. Residents are required to participate in at least one clinical research project during course of their training at Ascension Saint Francis, and all are encouraged to present their findings at regional and national meetings.