Rochester General Health System
Director's Letter
Our objective is to train you to become a complete Internist, or to prepare you for further training as a fellow. Medical education must be a balanced undertaking. Because of the rapidity of changing medical information, much of what we teach today as dogma will be dismissed in a few years. We at The Rochester General Hospital Internal Medicine Residency Program focus on you as an adult learner. Lots of individual attention. Our faculty to resident ration is greater than 1:1. Scholarship to cultivate your mind, ample experience to sharpen your instincts.
Evidence-based medicine empowers you to ask focused clinical questions, to best help your patients. It is a discipline that aids your analysis of literature. Why do we choose the tests we do, what is a number needed to treat, and what is a cohort study? We live by it daily in morning report (three times per week for Interns), conferences and in discussions with attending physicians. Study it during a month-long elective in your senior year and incorporate it into your scholarship project. The process will serve you the remainder of your medical career.
It is not enough to know medicine, we expect you to be able to communicate it as well. "Doctor" translates as teacher. Oral and written feedback follows presentations, especially your scholarship conferences. Thirty minutes with a chief resident and myself reviewing everything from your slides,and body language to proper use of the laser pointer. Do other programs teach you to teach?
We boast a Practice Based Experience (PBE), where you exist as a junior "partner" for a medical practice. Our graduates tell us the PBE was just the preparation needed to hit the ground running as a new practitioner. Another great innovation? Majors. Why must electives be delegated to a one-month experience? Majors are six months and give you a realistic exposure to ever-increasing outpatient medicine under the tutelage of the subspecialists. Here junior and senior residents may opt to spend a half-day per week in a subspecialty clinic, including all the traditional subspecialties or even Sports Medicine, HIV clinic, or even Pathology. More recently we ae arranging majors with private practice internists. Groom your ambulatory experience or get an edge for fellowship training. You may be at a competitive advantage in applying for fellowship because of a more insightful grasp of the specialty. Our residents report their time on Majors as a common topic of discussion on fellowship interviews. At RGHIMRP our residents flourish, and find the practice or fellowship they choose.
We are never without medical students on the wards. They are most often from The University of Rochester, but not exclusively. Our hospital is a thriving and friendly place to work, one of the top 100 cardiac hospitals in America for several years running and our nursing staff boasts special honors in being awarded Magnet Nursing status.
And, I haven’t even begun to brag about the residents…
Please consider spending your three years of Internal Medicine training with us at RGHIMRP. Give our well-designed curriculum a serious look, and apply.
Please e-mail me or Ms. Majszak, Program Coordinator, if questions remain after you review our website.
Good luck!
Paul Bernstein, M.D.
Program Director
Rochester General Hospital
Internal Medicine Residency Program
E-mail: internalmedicine@rochestergeneral.org
Phone: (585) 922-4369 or (800) 424-4905
NRMP #’: IMRP-1509140C0
