The IM Residency Program

The Categorical Residency Program in Internal Medicine emphasizes primary care, and is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). This non-pyramidal three year program offers about 30 positions for PGY-I residents (interns).

Most of the inpatient medical services are run by a team of 2 interns, a PGY-2 (junior) resident, a PGY-3 (senior) resident, and an attending physician. Third and fourth year medical students are also frequently incorporated into the team. Interns usually care for 8-12 patients. In the PGY-I year, interns have the opportunity to rotate through certain of the mixed medical/subspecialty services such as Pulmonary, Nephrology, Hematology-Oncology, as well as Psychiatry-Adolescent Medicine. Interns spend one month in the ICU, 4 weeks on vacation, 4 weeks as "Night Float", 4 weeks of block ambulatory continuity clinic, and the remainder of the rotations are on the General Medical Service. Because of the "Night Float" on the medical service, interns are usually only responsible for overnight coverage if their on-call day falls on a  Saturday; and when that occurs they have the following day off. 

 Junior (PGY-2) residents assume increased responsibility in their supervisory role and they start to attend some of the institutional committee meetings. They are encouraged to teach/mentor both medical students and interns. In the PGY-2 year, the same rotations are available as for the interns plus a month of elective,  a month on the Neurology service, and a month of ID or Hematology/Oncology elective.

 In the PGY-3 year, there are several months of elective time, and at the same time senior residents are expected to provide supervision to interns and junior residents and to assist in their evaluations. Senior residents generally rotate through the ICU and the Emergency room,  they spend a month on the Consult Service, a month of CCU/catheterization lab/cardiology  consult service at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, and a month of ambulatory block continuity clinic.  PGY-3 residents present their research projects, which they complete prior to graduation and they are expected to have participated in a community service activity by graduation as well..

For self-assessment of knowledge, residents in all years of training are strongly encouraged to participate in the annual (October) In-Training Examination.  Prior to graduation, residents are expected to have a "portfolio" of activities that document their competency in six major areas:    (1) Medical Knowledge, (2) Interpersonal and Communication Skills, (3) Patient Care,            (4) Professionalism, (5) Practice-based Learning and Improvement, and (6) Systems-based Practice.    Because of the emphasis of this training program on primary care, much of the evaluation of competency is done in the ambulatory continuity care clinic.             *