Our Program Philosophy
Our goal is to provide a comprehensive internal medicine education that is flexible enough to prepare you for your specific career goals, but that also enables you to become a competent and confident general internist. We strive for an educational environment that develops critical thinking skills, while maintaining the same atmosphere of respect and professionalism that we provide to our patients. We pride ourselves on being responsive to resident feedback and adapting to fit the needs of our residents and their education.
The program offers a stimulating intern year structured to develop the fundamental skills for internal medicine. Trainees further develop their management, leadership, and teaching skills during the G2/3 years by leading clinical teams. Our ambulatory curriculum provides a broad variety of clinical exposures across medical subspecialties to facilitate academic growth.
Our Residents
Our residents exemplify our collegial and supportive environment. They are a highly capable close-knit group who are dedicated, skilled researchers, and dedicated clinical professionals. Outside of the hospital they have multiple interests from classical music, enjoying the city life and the exploring the beautiful Vermont outdoors.
Our Faculty
Resident teaching is a privilege for our faculty, who are nationally recognized for being leaders in research, quality improvement, health policy, and education. Truly unique features of our program are our faculty-resident interactions and enthusiasm for mentoring: residents develop close relationships with our approachable faculty that provide career guidance, mentoring, and research opportunities.
Our Residency Curriculum
We have had a successful 4+1 block schedule since 2012. Within this system, residents have 1 week dedicated to their continuity clinic alternating with 4 weeks of inpatient rotations or electives. We have found this block schedule to have many benefits including improved continuity of care in primary care clinic, improved depth and breadth of outpatient educational curriculum and improved balance within the schedule allowing for a true focused outpatient experience separate from inpatient rotations. Our 4+1 schedule is one example of an idea proposed by residents that has been a phenomenal success for the program!
Our daily case-based morning report conference and theme-based academic half days have dedicated educational curricula to meet the needs of clinical education and board exam preparation. We acknowledge that residents and interns have different knowledge bases and have created separate academic half day curriculums for both interns and residents. Our clinical rotations provide balance between inpatient and outpatient experiences to provide a well-rounded clinical perspective for residents. Residents provide peer education and evidenced based medicine during journal clubs and mortality reviews at grand rounds.
Other educational innovations that distinguish our program include: monthly ethics curriculum and resident reflection sessions, the resident-created Resident Guide for new interns, an ACLS training program and interdisciplinary critical care cases in our simulation center, a bedside procedure training program (lumbar puncture, central lines, thoracentesis, and paracentesis), bedside ultrasound curriculum designed by and for residents, and purchase of MKSAP (either on-line subscription or books), NEJM Knowledge+ question bank, and Physician Education and Assessment Center (Yale curriculum) Curriculum for every resident.
Outpatient Highlights
In addition to our resident-wide academic half-day, we dedicate one half day and two noon conferences per week of continuity clinic where we cover a comprehensive ambulatory medicine curriculum, which includes guest speakers and outpatient procedure workshops. We use the Physician Education and Assessment Center (Yale curriculum). In addition to providing care at our primary care continuity clinic, residents also rotate through other outpatient clinical sites including: the Burlington outpatient VA clinic, geriatric primary care, acute rehabilitation, skilled nursing facility and subacute rehabilitation, Vermont Respite House, addiction treatment program clinic, and medicine subspecialty clinics.
Inpatient Highlights
In addition to being the primary physicians for patients on the general medicine, service, inpatient cardiology, intensive care unit, inpatient medical oncology and malignant hematology service, we offer a full complement of subspecialty medicine consultative rotations.
Our Tracks
All of our residents choose either a Categorical or Primary Care track. Our categorical track has an exceptional job placement rate in inpatient hospital medicine and outpatient primary care and a long history of successful fellowship matches. The tracks share the same core curriculum, with the primary care track incorporating specially designed rotations in outpatient medicine. Both tracks offer rural and international opportunities for your education.
The option to be a part of the point-of-care ultrasound track is available to all residents as well. All residents will be part of the ultrasound and procedure boot camp at the start of their intern year, have access to dedicated ultrasound faculty, and can submit their images for ongoing image review with real-time quality assurance and feedback. Track participants will be a part of an additional longitudinal curriculum with dedicated monthly educational sessions, peer imaging review sessions, and an annual “ultrasound week” with educational and simulation sessions. During their training, participants who complete the requirements of the track will receive POCUS certification from the University of Vermont Medical Center which is based on the guidelines outlined by the Society of Hospital Medicine.
Rural and Global Health Experiences
In addition to clinical experiences here at University of Vermont Medical Center, our residents have the opportunity to participate in rural and global health elective rotations. Over the last 3 years, we have had residents rotate internationally in South Africa, Panama, Uganda, Haiti, Pakistan and India. Some have also rotated in primary care and hospital sites in Alaska, Arizona and rural areas of Vermont. Our residents selected these locations with attention to their chosen career paths, and found these experiences to be invaluable adjuncts to their training at UVMMC. The Larner College of Medicine offers additional global partnerships at numerous sites where residents can rotate, alongside medical students and other healthcare professionals.
Our Institution
We are the tertiary referral center for Vermont, areas of New Hampshire, and upstate New York. Our patients represent the entire range of socioeconomic diversity and we serve a growing diverse refugee population. Our hospital offers full 24-hour ancillary services, hospitalist coverage, and ICU attending coverage to maximize resident education over service requirements. Our well-established night float systems and rotation schedules provide for duty hour compliance to ensure residents are able to learn and provide patient care in a safe and supportive environment. We offer a new Ambulatory Care Center for subspecialty care conveniently located at the main hospital campus, our resident clinic is recently renovated and offers diverse patient populations, and our new Simulation Center allows residents to train for procedural skills under the guidance of supportive faculty.
Why Chose Us? Get the Training You Want in a Location You Will Love!
Burlington is consistently voted one of the best places to live in the country with great schools, a safe and lively downtown, excellent recreation opportunities, a thriving culinary and musical scene, and a vibrant local economy. We offer an outstanding educational training environment that is responsive to resident needs and career goals. Our overarching mission is to provide our residents with the training and experience to achieve success.
Internal Medicine Residency Graduates
Our graduates have gone on to do amazing things! We have a history to successful fellowship matches and employment in both primary care and hospitalist medicine. We provide support for career advancement through mentoring as well as educational sessions. We have scheduled evening sessions with fellowship directors and those involved in hiring general medicine physicians to give tips on navigating the application process, obtaining great letters of reference, and other steps important to achieving individual goals. As you can see, our graduates have an diverse array of interests and have been successful in a variety of paths.
