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Do your graduates go on to do fellowships?
What is your morning report like?
Does your program offer enough autonomy?
Will I have adequate supervision when I need it?
Is the faculty at HCMC interested in teaching?
Does HCMC provide a good continuity clinic?
How difficult is residency at HCMC?
How are you complying with the 80-hour work week requirements?
HCMC is a county hospital. I've seen other county hospitals
and I'm not sure I like them?
I'm not from Minnesota. Why would I want
to train at a county hospital there?
The HCMC crew at the 2007 Minnesota ACP Conference |
Do your graduates go on to do fellowships?
Yes. Approximately half of our graduates pursue fellowship training. HCMC will position you to apply for fellowships and be competitive for training positions. Many residents present research at local and national conferences and publish articles in leading national journals. Graduates from our program have excelled in all major subspecialties as well as in academic general internal medicine, geriatrics, and a variety of other advanced training programs. |
What is your morning report like?
Our internal medicine morning report is a dynamic teaching conference focusing on differential diagnoses and patient management. Morning report is case-based, and residents present the cases in collaboration with the chief residents. Our computer system allows us to view chest x-rays, CT scans, and pathology slides. A brief (5-minute) PowerPoint presentation at the end of each conference summarizes teaching points. Twenty to thirty medicine residents in addition to students regularly attend morning report 5 days a week. Dr. Davies, our chief of medicine, attends daily. Subspecialty staff attend on a case-by-case basis. We serve organic fair-trade coffee to everyone who wants it!
HCMC Internal Medicine morning report |
Senior resident Ryan Dailey with MICU attending Dr. Bill Marinelli
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Does your program offer
enough autonomy?
Yes! Our residents often cite this as one of our program’s greatest strengths. Residents have principal responsibility for initial patient evaluation and management on ward rotations.
Faculty expect residents to make their own assessments and plans of care for patients before proceeding to attending rounds. Residents do most of their own procedures (central venous catheterization, lumbar puncture, etc.). Most residents have floated many Swan-Ganz catheters prior to graduation.
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Will I have adequate supervision when I need it?
Yes! Chief residents, fellows, and faculty are on call 24 hours a day for all major services. All are available to come in to the hospital and assist with patient care. In addition, internists are in the hospital well into the evening, 7 days a week, to see and discuss new admissions and to supervise procedures.
HCMC General Internal Medicine Staff
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Is the faculty at HCMC interested in teaching?
Almost the entire medicine faculty at HCMC is involved in teaching in clinical settings, research settings, or both. Teaching is part of our mission statement, and most of our faculty cites teaching as a principal reason to be at HCMC.Our faculty and residents regularly win University of Minnesota medical student-voted teaching awards. |
Does HCMC provide a good continuity clinic?
Yes. Residents have a half-day clinic twice a week during consult months with no clinic responsibilities during call months. Typical patients are 20 to 80 years old, tend to have multiple complex medical problems, and often have limited personal and financial resources.
This clinic is divided into three "Firms." Each Firm consists of approximately 20 residents, 5 faculty members, 3 nurses, a nurse ractitioner, a clerk, and dedicated clerical staff. Each Firm works much like a community general medical practice and works with the same faculty member throughout residency. This ensures that the staff know the patients: residents do not have to completely re-present patients who return for follow-up. In addition, staff continuity fosters a strong working relationship between attending and resident.
The clinic experience is further enhanced by weekly, staff-run didactic sessions focusing on outpatient management pearls. Most residents identify their Firm as a stable “home” away from the month-to-month cycle of ward and consult services. Residents find that many of their most important professional relationships are with continuity patients, Firm nurses, and staff.
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Dr. Peter Weissman attending in the Medicine Resident Continuity Clinic
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How difficult is residency at HCMC? How are you complying with the 80-hour work week requirements?
On inpatient rotations, the first-year resident (intern) is on call every fourth night. In the second and third year of residency, we have an active nightfloat system in place for many of the call month rotations. Approximately fifty percent of the program has no associated overnight call. We have several systems in place to ensure compliance with the 80 hour-work week and to make sure that workload does not interfere with education or threaten resident well-being:
- On all ward rotations, interns and senior residents receive one day off per week.
- On the general medicine ward, a nightfloat relieves the senior resident at 7:30 PM and stays overnight. Interns stay overnight in the hospital, but admit no more than 5 patients on a given call night. The nightfloat helps to admit patients with the interns up to a total of 10 patients for the team. At that point, the nightfloat admits patients on his/her own—these patients are handed off to a “rollover” service the following morning. The senior resident returns to the hospital on the post-call day to finish off tasks and ensure that the interns leave by 1:30 PM.
- On the ICU service, a similar nightfloat system is in place.
- On Cardiology and Renal (dialysis medicine) inpatient services, a senior dayfloat takes care of post-call issues for the overnight team and ensures that they leave no later than 1:30 PM.
HCMC is a County Hospital. I’ve seen other County Hospitals and I’m not sure I like them?
HCMC is a Level 1 Trauma Center and a major urban teaching hospital. Approximately 260 residents and medical students train here at any given time. Our physical facility is as modern and comfortable as any private hospital. We have outstanding financial support from Hennepin County, and our services (including radiology, laboratory, phlebotomy, social, and interpreter) are well-funded and state-of-the-art.
HCMC patients reflect the make-up of the surrounding County. We treat a diverse, multicultural population that includes many recent immigrants from all across the planet. We treat patients from a wide spectrum of economic backgrounds—many are without insurance or homeless. But many patients, who could go to any facility in the Upper Midwest, choose HCMC because of our outstanding reputation for excellence in clinical care.
Hennepin County Medical Center
I’m not from Minnesota. Why would I want to train at a County Hospital there?
For the same reasons that University of Minnesota students want to come here: the quality of the training is world-class, the setting is supportive, and the opportunities for our residents after they complete training are outstanding. 
Dr. Thomas Stillman with residents |
