Background: A recent study showed over 80 percent of internal medicine residents reported being uncomfortable or very uncomfortable with dermatologic issues. Formalized teaching in dermatology in medicine residency may be prudent. This teaching could occur in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Our objective was to study the effect of a dermatology curriculum on knowledge and [...]

Background: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) sets strict guidelines governing work hours for internal medicine trainees, not to exceed 80 hours per week. Though many programs grapple with achieving adherence, few published studies report successful changes to meet these limits. Previous efforts at our institution to reduce patient census on the teaching [...]

Background: Fall for hospitalized patients can cause significant injury and have devastating long term consequences for patients with 33% resulting in injury, 4-6% causing serious injury (1). Information is available regarding risk factors for falls and specific patient or nursing centric interventions to prevent falls, but there is little known about the physician perspective in [...]

Background: Hospitalized medical patients transitioning to new house staff at the end of an inpatient resident rotation are associated with an increased risk of mortality as compared with patients not exposed to such handoffs, yet no data exist on improvement strategies targeting this transition. Given the frequency with which residents rotate service, a transition in [...]

Background: Communication breakdown plays a part in the majority of adverse events in healthcare. Physician to physician handoffs are particularly prone to communication errors, yet have been shown to be more complete when systematized according to a standardized bundle. However,  the degree to which individual elements of this bundle, including written versus verbal handoffs, contribute [...]

Background: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires residency programs to collect work hour data from trainees, with strict policies that no trainee should exceed an 80-hour work week (on average). Evaluating efforts to reduce work hours frequently relies on self-reported hours from trainees, which is subject to recall bias, inconsistency, and variable [...]

Background: The traditional Morbidity and Mortality Conference (MMC) is known for its punitive aspects. Some programs have met the ACGME Internal Medicine (IM) requirement for MMC or Quality Improvement (QI) conferences by focusing on general principles of patient safety. We describe the impact of a QI-based MMC on resident perceptions of psychological safety and the [...]

Background: Since the ACGME established duty hour limits in 2003, there has been an increasing prevalence of night float rotations in internal medicine residency training. Conferences and formal didactics are a critical component of resident education. However, residents on night float rotations typically miss these essential educational activities that are typically held during the daytime [...]

Background: Hospital medicine is a rapidly growing specialty within internal medicine, offering diverse career opportunities in clinical practice, teaching, research, innovation, and quality improvement (QI). As with any other specialty within Internal Medicine, residents interested in Hospital Medicine need specialty guidance, mentorship, and professional development when considering careers in Hospital Medicine. The Hospital Internal Medicine [...]