An academic milieu exists at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center offering the resident an enhanced experience through close cooperation from other services, residents, fellows sub-specialists and internationally renowned Barrow Neurological Institute.
Rotations PGY-1
The PGY-1 year is designed to give preliminary and categorical interns a solid clinical experience in general inpatient medicine, critical care medicine, and ambulatory medicine. Interns are able to assume the role of primary caregiver for patients while under the supervision of senior residents and teaching faculty. The typical intern schedule includes the following rotations:
- Orientation - 1 Month
- Family Medicine In-Patient Service - 3 Months
- Internal Medicine – 2 Months
- Pediatrics - 3 Months
- General Surgery – 1 Month
- Obstetrics - 2 Months
Rotations PGY-2
The PGY-2 year residents begin to assume a supervisory role over their junior colleagues while under the guidance of the teaching faculty. They also enjoy a greater opportunity to explore their individual interests in subspecialties, primary care, and/or research. The typical PGY-2 schedule is as follows:
- Community Medicine - 1 Month
- Pediatric Emergency Medicine - 1 Month
- Family Medicine In-Patient - 2 Months
- Orthopedics - 1 Month
- Practice Management - 1 Month
- Emergency Room - 1 Month
- ENT - 1 Month
- Ophthalmology/Urology - 1 Month
- Geriatrics - 1 Month
- General Surgery – 1 Month
- Night Float – 1 Month
Rotations PGY-3
The PGY-3 year residents continue to assume a supervisory role over their junior colleagues while under the guidance of the teaching faculty. They also enjoy a greater opportunity to explore their individual interests in subspecialties, primary care, and/or research. The typical PGY-3 schedule is as follows:
- Family Medicine Inpatient – 6 wks
- ENT – 2 wks
- Gynecology – 1 mo
- Radiology – 1 mo
- Neurology – 1 mo
- Opthamology/Urology – 1 mo
- Dermatology – 1 mo
- Night Float – 3wks
- Electives – 4 mos
Medicine Subspecialties
Cardiology/CCU - 1 Month
This rotation is spent with private cardiologists seeing patients in the office, making hospital rounds and seeing patients in consultations.
Dermatology - 1 Month
Residents spend time with private community dermatologists. Experience is gained with biopsies, excisions, curettage and cryotherapy.
Neurology - 1 Month
This rotation is spent on the St. Joseph’s campus at the Barrows Neurology clinics seeing patients in the office, making hospital rounds, and seeing patients in consultations.
Sports Medicine - 1 Month
The Sports Medicine rotation is a hands-on experience which includes physicals, lectures and a one half day per week clinic in Sports Medicine. A required half-day clinic would include joint injections, detailed joint exams and radiology reviews. Residents are also welcome to volunteer to attend local high school games anytime during their residency to assist with on-field evaluations. The rotation also includes association with ASU collegiate sports.
Electives: Emergency Medicine, Trauma, Pathology, Sports Medicine, Allergy, Rheumatology, Gastroenterology, Endocrinology, Infectious Disease, Obstetrics, Adolescent Heath, Rural Hospice and Palliative care. Special Electives may be arranged with the Director’s permission.
Continuity Experience in Family Medicine Center:
PGY-1: 1 half-day per week
PGY-2: 2 - 3 half -days per week
PGY-3: 3 - 4 half-days per week
Didactics
One of the cornerstones of any residency programs is its didactic conference series. The curriculum must be rich, robust, and highly pertinent to the resident's education, yet at the same time, captivating and stimulating-- worthy of a busy young physician's scarce time. We feel that our lecture series meets and exceeds these goals. Family Medicine holds block conference every Thursday in the afternoon. The block conference schedule covers a wide variety of topics crucial to Family Medicine. Lecturers range from family medicine faculty and residents, our specialty colleagues, who enjoy a collaborative and informal relationship with our program and our residents.
Other vital conferences include Morbidity & Mortality Rounds and Journal Club. Each of these forums are conducted monthly by our residents and are designed to critically look at outcomes in the management or mismanagement of our inpatients, and to apply the constructs of critical appraisal to journal articles. Faculty, residents, and invited guests participate in these stimulating and often controversial forums.
Another integral feature of our didactic block curriculum is Family Medicine Grand Rounds. These residency-sponsored block onferences take place monthly at St. Joseph's Hospital. They are well attended by residents, faculty, staff, and physicians from the community. Many nationally acclaimed speakers participate, along with local favorites of the program. Every third year resident is required to present a topic of their choice for these Grand Rounds. In preparation, they are provided with instruction in Microsoft PowerPoint and other tools to enhance their presentation skills. As a rule, these presentations have been outstanding, and many worthy of publication!
Many other didactic sessions complement the training here. These range from Morning Report, to daily mini-lectures provided by faculty to the inpatient team, to weekly block conferences and conferences on other residency services within the hospital. The Department of Academic Affairs at St. Josephs's also hosts a monthly housestaff meeting that meet the ACGME core compencies with such interesting topics as end of life ethical issues and medical jurisprudence.
