Curriculum

We offer a variety of inpatient and outpatient experiences to give residents a diverse and balanced education.

Inpatient

On our inpatient schedule, we rotate call in a cyclical fashion every four days. This cycle includes a long-call day (admitting all day), post-call day (a chance to clean up issues and get to know your patients from the prior day), short call day (admissions for part of the day) and a pre-call day (no admissions, prepare for long-call). As a community hospital, we see a strong variety and acuity of cases, from frequent “bread-and-butter” cases like congestive heart failure and pneumonia, to the rare “zebra’s” such as cardiac myxomas and spontaneous thoracic duct ruptures.

Ambulatory

During ambulatory rotations, residents work in the academic internal medicine clinic with a variety of patients with respect to ages, diseases and health literacy. There is an effort to promote graduated autonomy in both complexity of patient illness and the number of patients evaluated by residents. Residents are given weekly protected administrative time, just as clinicians would receive as part of real-world employment to help manage daily patient care tasks.

ICU

Residents complete their ICU rotation at Shea Hospital, a 427 bed hospital with 26 ICU beds. Residents work directly with an attending and are able to have access to all procedures. The acuity and pathology is very high, including exposure to patients on ECMO.

Internal medicine residents geared up with PPE
Drs. Taranto and Charest geared up with PPE

Schedule

See sample schedules (PDF)

Categorical Year 1

  • Inpatient - 20 weeks
  • Night float - 4 weeks
  • Ambulatory medicine - 12 weeks
  • Sub-specialty electives - 12 weeks
  • ICU medicine - 4 weeks

Year 2

  • Inpatient - 14 weeks
  • Night Float - 4 weeks
  • Ambulatory medicine - 8 weeks
  • ICU medicine - 4 weeks
  • Sub-specialty electives - 18 weeks
  • Geriatrics - 4 weeks

Year 3

  • Inpatient - 12 weeks
  • Night float - 4 weeks
  • Ambulatory medicine - 8 weeks
  • ICU medicine - 4 weeks
  • Sub-specialty electives - 24 weeks
     

Electives

We offer a diverse range of electives. To name a few:

  • Addiction medicine
  • Allergy/immunology
  • Nephrology/advanced nephrology
  • Cardiology
  • Community Health
  • Dermatology
  • Endocrinology
  • GI
  • Heme/onc
  • ID
  • Palliative Care
  • POCUS
  • Procedures
  • Pulmonary
  • Radiology
  • Rheumatology
  • Surgical subspecialties like: ENT, ophthalmology, orthopedics
  • Wound care

Designer electives

Residents have the ability to create electives that might not already be in place. Some recent examples include:

  • Hyperbaric wound therapy
  • Sports medicine
  • Congenital cardiology at Phoenix’s Children’s Hospital
  • Advanced critical care at HonorHealth Deer Valley Medical Center and John C. Lincoln Medical Center
  • Bone Marrow Transplant at HonorHealth Scottsdale Shea Medical Center

Off-site experiences

As a part of their core rotations, our residents consistently get to experience care and increased diversity of patients at:

  • ICU – HonorHealth Scottsdale Shea Medical Center 
  • Geriatrics – Mayo Clinic in Arizona
  • Endocrinology and Physical Medicine Rehab - Phoenix Veteran’s Affairs Hospital
  • Advanced inpatient medicine – HonorHealth John C. Lincoln Medical Center
Internal Medicine Residents at a lunch outing
Lunch break for residents