Big Plans

Hi everyone:

We have big plans for next year! Check it out:

1. Revamping conferences: We’re moving the Summer Emergency Lecture Series to noon so more people can attend. We’re going to end 3PM lectures since mid-afternoon doesn’t work for our schedules. Instead, we’ll insert key didactics into the noon slot and maintain our rich trove of teaching videos for you to watch at your convenience. In response to your requests, we’ll be adding even more hands-on teaching, including code-simulation, communication workshops, and POCUS training.
2. More cardiology: We’re rolling out a new “Cardiology Blue” service this summer, which will complement our CICU and Goodyer teams. The experience will feature ER consults for patients with acute chest pain, arrhythmias, and heart failure.
3. More geriatrics: The Cooney Service will expand to two residents and four interns this summer, which means all categorical interns will have a core inpatient geriatrics experience. Dr. Lai is working on an enhanced teaching curriculum for the team.
4. New VA selectives: Next year, interns will be assigned to new outpatient rotations at the VA, where they can select among exciting experiences such as addiction medicine, palliative care, ambulatory geriatrics, physiatry, and more. Similar opportunities will be available for residents. Dr. McNamara will follow up soon with details.
5. An Expanded Ambulatory Cultural Humility/Competency Curriculum: We’re working with experts to ramp up our ability to better serve and learn from our diverse New Haven community.
6. Inroads on 28-hour call: We need more upper year residents to eliminate 28-hour shifts completely, but with more interns in the incoming class, we’ll have more residents the following year, which should allow us to create a new VA night team and decrease call. This year, we’re creating a new resident night float on York Street, which should decrease the number of 28-hour calls at YNHH.
7. More in-person teaching: Everyone wants more in-person teaching. While space considerations prevent us from fitting everyone in a single room during lunch hour, we plan to move to a hybrid model combining in-person and remote learning.*
8. Conference attendance: With Zoom, we can’t tell who’s attending conference and who isn’t. We’re looking at several systems so we can keep track and identify obstacles to full participation. We will also collaborate with nursing to maximize uninterrupted learning time.
9. Intern milestones: Many interns have told me they want a more systematic approach to ensuring readiness to become PGY2s. Though I know all our interns will be ready to take that step, they’re right that a more explicit system will alleviate anxiety and promote greater autonomy as the year progresses. With the help of Natasha Freeman, Koeun Choi, and others, we’re creating an intern milestone calendar to track skill acquisition in areas such as order entry, note writing, presentations, procedures, and responding to emergencies. We’re also going to revamp the MedHub Peer Evaluation Form to track intern progress towards independence.
10. New Capstone Rotations: Beginning this summer, we will have a new Hospital Medicine Firm, led by Drs. Chris Sankey and Anisha Advani. The rotation will be PGY3-only and will feature one to one mentorship with a hospital medicine attending, ensuring that all graduating residents have the skills they need to practice inpatient medicine independently. This new rotation will complement our other PGY3 capstones, including MICU Swing, the VA MICU, and the Generalist Service, which will be replacing Fitkin on 5-5.

If there’s one thing true about our residency, it’s that we’re never done innovating and renovating. Thanks to the many residents and faculty whose ideas and suggestions will continue to make our clinical and educational experiences relevant, exciting, and fun.

Have a great Sunday, everyone. I’m going out on a long bike ride.

Mark

*Until the rooftop amphitheater is built.