Core Rotations

• General Medicine Ward
• Inpatient Cardiology
• Medical Intensive Care Unit
• Internal Medicine Clinic (4 weeks a year)
• Research (2 to 4 weeks per year)
• Neurology (4 weeks as a PGY-1)
• Subspecialty medicine clinics by request

Required core electives (selective) include: cardiology clinic, pulmonary, neurology, geriatrics, emergency medicine, and the yearly ambulatory medicine rotation. The number of non-medicine rotations is limited to 12 weeks (not including office orthopedics, office gynecology)

General Medicine Ward

The Department of Medicine's inpatient general medicine service usually consists of three teams (GM1, GM2, GM3) taking admissions on an every 3rd day basis. These teams will generally consist of one attending physician, one internal medicine R2/R3, two PGY-1s, and one to two medical students. However sometimes the composition of each team may vary and may include mid-level providers as well. As a requirement of the ACGME, all housestaff are to have “on average one day in seven free of patient care responsibilities”. The “off duty” days for each member of the inpatient team should be scheduled after review of the call schedule and continuity clinic schedule with the staff attending.

Inpatient Cardiology

The Inpatient Cardiology (IPC) service can be configured several different ways depending on availability of house staff. It will generally be either two residents, or of one internal medicine resident, and one or two PGY-1s, a nurse practitioner, and an occasionally medical students. On Wednesdays, interns/residents on cardiology rotations will attend cardiology morning report which is conducted with the El Paso Veterans Affairs Health Care System and WBAMC cardiologists. This is in lieu of medicine morning report.

Internal Medicine Clinic

Resident continuity clinics in our new Internal Medicine Resident clinic provide for comprehensive quality care for patients in a supervised environment. Residents are expected to gain clinical knowledge in the management of acute, routine, and chronic medical conditions commonly encountered in ambulatory medicine. This environment also stimulates the development of office-based technical skills, decision making, and problem solving in the outpatient setting. Special emphasis is made on patient education, anticipatory guidance, and indications for referral to a consultant or sub specialist. Each resident is expected to carry a cohort of continuity patients during their 3 year residency.

Research

Every internal medicine program is required to have a scholarly activity project for each resident. The goals for this activity are as follows:

1. Gain an understanding of the ethics of conducting human use research and the process by which research protocols gain approval.
2. Gain an appreciation of the difficulties in effectively conducting research
3. To be able to effectively and succinctly present the results of their research or a case presentation

This activity falls under the interpersonal and communication skills and practice-based learning and improvement competencies.
Upon completion of the rotation, the diligent student will be knowledgeable in the management of a variety of headache disorders, seizure disorders, and stroke. The rotator will also become adroit in the performance and interpretation of the mental status and neurological examinations. The rotator will receive an extensive collection of up-to-date review articles on the various common neurological disorders, as well as exposure to outpatient neurology and inpatient consultative neurology.