Internal Medicine Residency | Baltimore, MD | MedStar Health

Get to know the program

Enjoy a candid look into our program by meeting some of our residents and faculty.

To learn more about residents activity check our Instagram page. To learn about our scholar activity check our twitter account.

Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to train residents in the ACGME’s six core competencies, which include patient care, medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, and systems-based practice. Our residents will achieve these competencies through a variety of rotations on the inpatient general medicine floor, intensive care unit, ambulatory clinic and electives.

We run on a 6+2 ambulatory model. The academic year is divided into six 8-week sections. The ‘6’ designates the spent on the wards, in the ICU, in the ED, or on electives. The ‘+2’ is during which ambulatory experiences will occur.

Our inpatient rotations take place at MedStar Union Memorial and MedStar Franklin Square Hospitals. Additional elective rotations are available MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital & MedStar Harbor Hospital. One unique aspect of our program is the Acute Cardiac Service at Union Memorial, a dedicated cardiac unit where residents work closely with both attending faculty and cardiologists. Union is a regional referral center for cardiology care and our residents gain a wealth of experience taking care of these complicated patients. On the other side of the city Franklin Square has become a center for neuro-interventional care and provides a unique experience in the care of complicated stroke patients.

Residents are assigned an outpatient clinic either in one of our core residency clinics or with a regional private provider to gain experience in a real world clinical practice. Our residents can rotate through a variety of outpatient specialty clinics including the core internal medicine specialties such as Infectious Disease and Oncology, but also fields like Orthopedics, Pain Management, and Bariatric clinic.

Our program offers five specialized tracks for residents who have identified specific career interests. These tracks provide focused education, mentorship, and hands-on experiences designed to help residents explore their chosen fields and prepare for their future careers.

Primary Care Track

The MedStar Health Internal Medicine Residency Program offers a Primary Care Track for residents interested in pursuing careers in general internal medicine, primary care, or outpatient-focused subspecialties. Embedded within the traditional categorical training program, the track provides residents with dedicated mentorship and enhanced ambulatory experiences during their second and third years of training.

Residents have opportunities to participate in quality improvement and scholarly projects and to develop individualized educational experiences based on their future career goals and interests.

Additional information about our other specialized educational tracks, including Health Equity & Global Health, Lifestyle Medicine, Social medicine & Health Equity, Global Health Equity and Clinician Educator Tracks can be found at https://medstargme.net/your-education/.

Conferences and didactics
At each of our sites, there is a Noon Conference Series. This is where you will have lunch and hear lectures from our faculty educators or cases presented by you or your colleagues. This is a great venue for smaller group learning amongst all learner levels, from 3rd year medical student to attending. It’s also a great place to hone your presentation skills as you will be presenting cases to senior clinicians when you are on service. To achieve maximum exposure for some of our most in-demand educators, we will telecast certain lectures to all of our sites so each resident will be able to receive the same information.

On Tuesday afternoons, we have Academic Half Day (AHD) in place of noon conference. This is where the majority of our residents and faculty gather to hear and actively participate in an afternoon of learning. We have a variety of presenters who impart their knowledge and lead interactive case-based didactics with everyone. This event travels between MedStar Franklin Square and MedStar Union Memorial and is also teleconferenced for residents and faculty who are unable to attend from the other sites. There is a rotating schedule of events where conferences such as Journal Club, Morbidity and Mortality, Housestaff Meetings, interactive small group lectures, and visiting professors are some of the experiences to expect.

On Thursdays, Medical Grand Rounds is teleconferenced from MedStar Union Memorial to all hospitals. This conference showcases invited regional and national speakers who present in their areas of expertise which are relevant to both resident and attending providers.

Each of our hospitals also hosts Morning Report. This is an informal conference where our night float residents present cases admitted overnight to demonstrate their clinical decision making via presentation of their thought process and plan. The faculty on the teams are usually present in addition to other interested teachers who take this opportunity to add their expertise to the cases.

As you can see, we have a lot of opportunities for formal didactic learning; but, please don’t get the impression that the only teaching you’ll enjoy is at sessions such as these. Our faculty is committed to continuous education while on rounds and at the bedside. You will be learning as you care for patients and our faculty make sure this happens seamlessly every day.
Advisory program

Every resident is paired with an advisor at the beginning of their intern year. The primary goal of this relationship is to enable each resident to develop a relationship with a faculty physician who can check in with them regularly, provide career guidance, and track their progress through the program. They are available to discuss any issues or problems that may arise. Our advisor pool is large, diverse, and has many contacts to aide you in your pursuit of a successful career in medicine.

Each advisor-advisee relationship is different and will depend on the personality and needs of the learner. Some may meet often and even outside of work hours and some just find that the regular quarterly updates are all that is needed. It is important to remember that residents are free to have other mentors outside of this formal relationship who meet other needs of the learner, such as a common subspecialty or cultural interests.
Wellness

The MedStar Health Internal Medicine residency program strives to create a culture that promotes wellness, reduces risk of burnout, and encourages positive interactions among residents, students, faculty, and staff. We work to maintain a culture in which we support each other and everyone is comfortable seeking support when they need it.

Our residency wellbeing program includes some protected time for resident's personal wellbeing, regularly scheduled resident wellness discussion groups led by our Director of Residency Wellbeing, Dr. Heather Hartman-Hall, and didactics surrounding wellness and self-care. Our residency implements a comprehensive fatigue mitigation plan, with fatigue mitigation education, resident calls rooms at all sites and a safe environment for acknowledging when a transition of patient care due to excessive fatigue is needed. Our advisor program allows us to keep touch with residents and stay tuned to identifying burnout and stress, and we offer cultural and social activities throughout the year to encourage camaraderie and inclusivity in our program. Ride services are covered when needed to get residents home safely due to fatigue.

The beautiful residency Oasis space at MUMH includes a massage chair, recliners, and a number of relaxation tools for resting and recharging. This space also includes a separate private area for prayer/meditation/quiet reflection and a mother's lactation room with a refrigerator and lockers.

Some of our program perks include complimentary lunches Tuesday-Friday and free on-site gym access at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center and MedStar Union Memorial Hospital.

MedStar Health provides a wide range of wellness resources for residents and faculty, including a physician concierge program and free brief mental health counseling. All residents are also eligible to use MedStar Health’s Care.com program for inexpensive, high-quality back-up care for children or other family members who need caregiving. See the MedStar Health wellbeing website for more information.

Research

The overall goal of our Internal Medicine Training Program is to build upon the fundamental scaffold of medical knowledge gained during medical school, furthering an understanding of pathophysiology and treatment, focusing on a patient-centric approach to medical care, and creating a culture of intellectual curiosity and scientific discovery. Our program acknowledges that the individual career goals of our residents vary widely – specialty fellowship training, inpatient primary care, outpatient medicine, as well as non-traditional roles in industry, consulting, as well as scientific research/academia – however also firmly believes that participation in research fosters more knowledgeable, engaged, and capable physicians. As such the Internal Medicine Training program is committed to creating a culture of scientific discovery, scholarly thought, and an appreciation of creating new knowledge. To achieve these aims, we have developed a Residency Research Program, directed by Christopher Haas, MD, PhD, designed to introduce methods of hypothesis driven research, biostatistics, medical writing, and medical presentation. We are confident that this research program will not only lead to novel research publications, matriculation to fellowship, and enhanced Internal Medicine Residency experience, but also provide our resident with a set of tangible skills and a desire for lifelong scientific inquiry and integrity.

Our program places a high priority on resident participation in research. We strongly encourage our residents to complete a scholarly activity in accordance with the ACGME guidelines, with the goal of having each of our residents complete a dedicated retrospective or prospective study prior to the completion of their training. To support this goal, we have appointed Dr. Christopher Haas as the Residency Research Director, established specialty research groups, developed a formal residency research curriculum, and continue to develop collaborations with specialty groups both within and outside of MedStar Health. Our program is dedicated to providing mentorship, educational support, statistical backing, and sponsorship for local/regional/ national conferences, posters, as well as publications. Opportunities for residents to showcase their work include peer-reviewed publications, local (MedStar Health Research Institution Research Day and Maryland ACP), national, and international scientific conferences.

Please feel free to contact our research program by directly emailing Dr. Christopher Haas at Christopher.j.haas@medstar.net.

Medical students

The MHIM residency program strives to provide a comprehensive and well-integrated training experience in internal medicine for our learners. Medical students are an important part of our educational landscape. As you have read elsewhere on our site, our learners provide patient care in all MedStar Health Baltimore hospitals which provide a vast array of clinical, academic and teaching opportunities for medical students. Georgetown University medical students complete 4 weeks of their Internal Medicine clerkship at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center and MedStar Union Memorial Hospitals. During their rotation, medical students work 1:1 with the inpatient resident teams in an educational environment that values wellbeing, camaraderie and professionalism. Throughout their rotation, medical students are exposed to a wide variety of clinical experiences, enhanced by the presence of an interdisciplinary clinical team comprised of medical residents, case managers, social workers, nurses and clinical pharmacists. The interdisciplinary team is committed to provide value-awareness and patient-centered care.

The department of Family Medicine at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center is the hub of the longitudinal integrated curriculum (LIC) student training program for Georgetown University School of Medicine 3^rd year students. These students complete their core 3^rd year rotations at MedStar Franklin Square, rotating through Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology, along with subspecialty rotations.

Finally, each summer, we host Georgetown University graduating 1^st year medical students for their annual research summer program. For 8 weeks, each summer scholar works directly with a physician- investigator to conduct research in a specific area of interest with the opportunity to have some degree of clinical exposure. Their summer academic experience culminates with a capstone presentation at the end of the research program.

At both, MedStar Franklin Square and MedStar Union Memorial , we offer an Acting Internship rotation, that is designed for fourth-year medical students interested to deepen and broaden their clinical medical knowledge in Internal Medicine field. We accept visiting students from any US-accredited medical schools, and willing students should apply for the rotation through the VSLO platform.

Within MedStar Health North, we also offer Clinical Cardiology rotation, with more information available through VSLO platform.

For more information about our student programs, please contact:

Diane Frey-Tomaszewski – student coordinator
Diane.M.Frey-Tomaszewski@Medstar.net