Strengths of the Program

• Small size of the program: The residency program is relatively small and intimate, with 20 residents, which is well below the average of internal medicine residency programs affording a low resident to teacher ratio. This provides us with the unique opportunity to provide focused attention, and frequent evaluations of each of our residents.
• Faculty Advising Program: The residents benefit from a highly organized faculty advising program in which residents are paired with fully motivated faculty from many of the internal medicine specialties at the onset of their residency affording both formal and informal interaction opportunities. The success of our residents in achieving fellowships is thought in part to be due to the informal and formal mentoring relationships they share with faculty advisors.
• Hospitalist Teaching Service: Our fully integrated hospitalist teaching program has been in place since November of 2009 providing a rich educational environment on the inpatient service.
• ICU Experience: Residents consistently rate their experience in the Intensive Care Unit extremely high due to the leadership and oversight of their rotation by Dr. James Krinsley, Director of the ICU. They emerge from Stamford Hospital with a comfort level similar to that of a fellow in Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine. In addition, Stamford Hospital is a recipient of The Joint Commission's Ernest A. Codman award for excellence in the use of outcomes measurement to achieve improvements in the quality and safety of healthcare in the ICU.
• Research opportunities: Residents enjoy meaningful research opportunities whereby at least one-third of our residents at any given time have the opportunity to present abstracts at national meetings, as well as engage in research culminating in publication.
• Opportunity to have a meaningful ambulatory experience: The RRC mandates residency programs to develop and implement innovative ways to minimize inpatient responsibilities while caring for patients in the ambulatory setting. We have met that charge by completely separating the inpatient experience from the outpatient experience by implementing a modified "4:1 block system."
• Diverse patient population: residents receive an outstanding clinical education by having access to an economically, culturally, and medically diverse patient population.
• University Affiliation with Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons: Residents engage in a bi-directional educational experience with our university affiliate Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons. Our PG-2's participate in a required rotation in neurology at the Columbia University Medical Center. Residents develop their teaching skills by supervising third year medical students from the College of Physicians and Surgeons rotating through Stamford Hospital for their medicine clerkship.
• Geriatrics experience: Residents learn the principles of geriatric assessment at both Yale New Haven and Stamford Hospitals during their required Geriatrics rotation.