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 energetic, skilled researchers, and dedicated clinical professionals. Outside of the hospital they have multiple interests from playing music, club sports, 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, coaching, 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 noon report conference and weekly 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 evidence-based peer education during journal clubs and mortality reviews at grand rounds.
Other educational innovations that distinguish our program include: resident reflection sessions, 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), ACP memberships and the Yale Curriculum.
Journal Club and Research Seminar Series
This longitudinal curriculum includes 12 journal club sessions across the R2/R3 years. This interactive, seminar-style curriculum supports evidence-based and informed practice by critically appraising the literature, discussing the application of the evidence into practice, and developing the necessary skills for coaching others to critically appraise and integrate evidence into clinical practice. The curriculum focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of research questions, design, analyses, data interpretation, and generalizability to patient care within the context of relevant published articles.
Residents will also have opportunities to prepare case reports or participate in other scholarly activities related to research and quality improvement. Residents present their scholarly projects locally at the annual Resident Research Day at the end of their third year.
Outpatient Highlights
In addition to our academic half-day, we dedicate one half day and one noon conference per week of continuity clinic where we cover a comprehensive ambulatory medicine curriculum, which includes guest speakers and outpatient procedure workshops. We use the Yale Ambulatory Curriculum and have a dedicated panel management curriculum and intern series in addition to our core 3-year curriculum. In addition to providing care at our primary care continuity clinic, residents also rotate through other outpatient subspecialty clinics such as the addiction treatment clinic, and homeless medicine outreach clinic which is open to all residents.
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.
Point of Care Ultrasound and Procedure Training
All residents will be part of the PGY-1 year ultrasound and procedure curriculum, have access to dedicated ultrasound faculty, and can submit their images for ongoing image review with real-time quality assurance and feedback. The option to join the point-of-care ultrasound track is available to all residents any time during their second and third years. Track participants will be part of an additional longitudinal curriculum with dedicated monthly education sessions, peer image review sessions, and with education 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.
Away Rotations
In addition to clinical experiences here at University of Vermont Medical Center, our residents have the opportunity to participate in away rotations throughout the U.S. and at rural primary care sites. Over the last 3 years, we have had residents work at hospitals in Alaska, at the NIH, Vanderbilt University, Beth Isreal Deaconess, Indiana University and University of Iowa. In addition, residents have the option to rotate through the in-patient units at our Networks' community hospitals including Central VT Medical Center, Porter Medical Center, and Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in NY. Residents may also pursue elective experiences at rural primary care sites throughout our extensive catchment area which encompasses the entire state of Vermont and six counties in northern NY, serving approximately a million people.
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 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 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.