print

Program Details

Our Central Educational Goals

  • Prepare highly qualified internists who will excel in a chosen career.
  • Promote ways to gather clinical information effectively and communicate compassionately.
  • Instill enthusiasm for lifelong learning.
  • Teach ways to find, appraise, and apply new scientific knowledge.
  • Provide early, positive experiences in ambulatory general medicine, inpatient general medicine, subspecialty medicine, and scholarship.
  • Develop individualized educational programs based on evolving career objectives.

What Makes Us Unique

  • Consistent focus on the health care needs of the individual patient and the educational needs of the individual resident.
  • Academic rigor combined with an open, supportive learning environment.
  • Appropriate balance of education and service.
  • Emphasis on the growth of the resident as a teacher.
  • Active involvement of residents in planning future programs.

We believe residents learn best through direct responsibility in the care of patients. So, the central educational experience of our residency is the individual patient encounter. Our residents interview and examine patients in a wide variety of clinical settings. They define each patient's clinical problems and health care needs. They develop plans for diagnosis and management. Each patient encounter is mentored by at least one faculty member and, for PGY1s, by a more senior resident as well. (Most teaching is one-on-one.) We pay attention to the patient's illness, but also to the psychological and social context in which that illness occurs.

After seeing patients, residents and faculty members define knowledge gaps, then fill them in with the best available basic or clinical research. They make decisions of care based on science and on the knowledge gained from a pattern of lifelong, patient-centered learning.  The individual patient is the focus of our rounds and conferences, which often take place at the patient's bedside—a hallmark of a Rochester residency. We create an environment unencumbered by hierarchy, and we promote and expect participation of all learners in an academically rigorous discussion.