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Featured Articles
Selection Criteria for Fellowships: Are We All on the Same Page?
According to a survey conducted during the 2005 Internal Medicine In-Training Examination (IM-ITE), the number of internal medicine residents planning to apply for fellowship programs continues to grow (1). Nearly 60 percent of residents taking IM-ITE expressed an interest in pursuing subspecialty training, with cardiology and gastroenterology being the most sought after fellowships. In addition, 3,964 applicants participated in the 2006 Medical Specialty Matching Program (MSMP), with 61 percent matching to a fellowship program (2).
Hartford Foundation Awards ASP $2.6 Million for Integrating Geriatrics Efforts
The John A. Hartford Foundation in December 2006 awarded the Association of Specialty Professors (ASP) $2.6 million for the association’s “Integrating Geriatrics into the Specialties of Internal Medicine: Moving Forward from Awareness to Action” proposal. ASP Past President Kevin P. High, MD, will serve as principal investigator of the grant. Jeffrey B. Halter, MD, and Kenneth E. Schmader, MD, will serve as co-principal investigator and co-investigator, respectively.
No More Sloppy "Sop" Notes?
Effective written communication of clinical
information is essential in medicine.
Educators of medical students understand
the importance of communication skills
and often see first hand how difficult it can
be for physicians-in-training to master written
communication. A quick look at orientation materials
and clinical evaluations from any internal medicine
clerkship confirms the value clerkship directors
place on these skills. Faculty physicians often
use written notes to ascertain a student’s clinical
reasoning abilities. Thorough documentation of
medical decision-making and clinical reasoning is of
particular concern when taking into account today’s
fast pace of medicine and trends that allow billing
documentation to drive medical records.
The Future of Academic Hospital Medicine
The need for hospitalists in medical schools
and teaching hospitals creates complex
challenges for departments of internal
medicine and divisions of general internal
medicine. As this need increases, the hospital
medicine community confronts a range of challenges
to the sustainability and long-term academic viability
of hospitalist careers. Moreover, divisions of general
internal medicine face the challenge of determining
where to place hospitalists within the traditional
academic divisional structure.
Innovations in Education
In upcoming issues of Academic Internal Medicine Insight, AAIM will use this space to highlight the goals and innovations pursued by residency programs participating in the Review Committee for Internal Medicine Educational Innovations Project. The goal of this review is to provide the academic internal medicine community a view into these programs and to stimulate broader consideration and discussion of these innovations. Future articles and presentations will detail the progress toward accomplishing innovation as well as the barriers encountered and lessons learned along the way.
Incorporating Reflective Writing into the Clerkship
During the last decade, medical schools have
turned to writing exercises as a means
for encouraging students to reflect on
their learning experiences during clinical
clerkships. The reasons for the increased popularity
of reflective writing are broad. To some extent, the
interest grows out of the movement to broaden
curricula beyond strictly biomedical topics. Interest
in issues such as humanism, professionalism, medical
sociology, and medical humanities lend themselves
to exploration through reflective writing. There also
has been a growing interest in the study of literature
in medicine, another focus closely related to reflective
writing. Through reading literature, students can learn
about the lives of their patients and thereby recognize
the power and implications of their actions (1).
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