Educational Experience

The Med-Peds Residency is structured to provide increasing responsibility and autonomy in both patient care and teaching supervision over the four years. Additionally, residents have progressively more elective time throughout the program to allow for an individualized overall experience.

Our training program combines direct patient care with both formal and informal educational experiences. Our principal aim is to provide an education to residents which enables them to render superlative medical care to patients of all ages. At the completion of their training, our residents are able to provide excellent primary care and, if so desired, are outstanding candidates for fellowship training. Overall, approximately 50% of the graduates of our program pursue general medicine and primary care while 50% elect to pursue fellowship training.

Goals

Our goal is to train highly skilled and compassionate professionals, and we provide an environment for those physicians to achieve this goal. Our residents are responsible for the care of patients with a wide variety of medical illnesses, ranging from those routinely encountered in primary care practice to those seen only in the tertiary care setting. The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (OSUWMC) hospitals and Nationwide Children's Hospital (NCH) serve the combined roles of urban community hospitals, indigent care providers and referral centers for central and Southeastern Ohio. Residents have carefully supervised and graded patient care responsibility in a variety of educational settings at these hospitals and in faculty-staffed outpatient care offices.

Additional primary care and ambulatory care experiences are offered during rotations in the outpatient Veterans Administration Clinic and at several rural community clinics. The greater Columbus area has ten med-peds private practices, many of the physicians being graduates of this program. Many of these practices participate in an educational program called Internal Medicine-Pediatric Education in Community Sites (IM-PECS) where PGY2 to PGY4 residents spend a half day per week caring for patients in the private office.

Inpatient Experience

Both Ohio State and Nationwide inpatient services include sub-specialty wards as well as general internal medicine and general pediatric wards. Patients admitted to sub-specialty wards require both a specialized approach to their medical problems and attention to their general health. Ward rounds are conducted daily with an attending physician who maintains the academic forum for patient care. Resident contact with faculty physicians is an integral component of our program.

Outpatient Experience

The ambulatory patient care educational experience in internal medicine includes the general internal medicine and specialty clinics at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, outpatient veteran's affairs experience, dedicated geriatric rotation and the emergency department. A two block longitudinal experience known as the Senior Ambulatory Block affords PGY4 residents the opportunity to tailor their outpatient curricula and provides them a longitudinal care experience in multiple specialty clinics of their choosing.

The outpatient component at Nationwide Children's includes the Sports Medicine Clinic, Adolescent Clinic, Behavioral/Developmental Clinic, sub-specialty and surgical clinics and the emergency department. At least six blocks are spent in the various pediatric clinics. Med-Peds residents provide continuing medical care to their own population of patients through continuity clinic throughout their four years of training. During the final three years, weekly clinic rotations in a private Med-Peds practice (IM-PECS) enhance the exposure to "real world" ambulatory medicine.

Primary Care Experience

The Departments of Internal Medicine at Nationwide Children's Hospital and Ohio State have partnered to create The South High Center for Primary Care. The center provides health care to the under-servedsouth side community of Columbus, while also providing an outstanding outpatient training center for the Med-Peds residents.

The South High Center for Primary Care

The South High Primary Care Center is located in a medically underserved area on the South side of town and provides comprehensive care to patients of all ages from newborns to adults. South High has achieved National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) – Patient Centered Medical Home Level three status. The clinic is staffed by physicians board certified in both internal medicine and pediatrics, as well as nursing staff, a social worker, dietician and pharmacists all dedicated to resident education and improving the health of the community. The expanded facility that opened in June of 2013 has a large resident work area, 12 patient rooms, on-site laboratory and up-to-date equipment. This innovative clinic gives you the foundation in ambulatory medicine and patient experience you need to succeed.

In general, residents spend one half day per week in clinic. They develop their own patient panel and follow those patients throughout their four years of residency. Patient encounters encompass all aspects of primary care from well pediatric visits, adult health maintenance visits, acute ill visits, care of the medically complex and those with special health care needs. 

The clinic has a targeted ambulatory curriculum with a weekly lecture series for residents. Residents develop and participate in quality improvement projects, continually enhancing how we provide optimal, evidence-based care to our community.

Internal Medicine-Pediatric Education in Community Sites (aka IM-PECS)

The IM-PECS experience is designed to provide one of the nation's most distinctive training experiences in community practice.  Augmenting the foundation of ambulatory care education provided in resident continuity clinic, each resident is assigned to a preceptor in a community internal medicine-pediatrician's office.  Residents attend weekly half-day sessions during select rotations of the second through fourth years of residency. During the second or third year of residency, residents participate in a month-long IM-PECS rotation. This vital, one-of-a-kind training experience:

• Reinforces the basics of primary care
• Ensures a rich diversity of experience with different patient populations and a variety of practice models
• Teaches the business aspect of primary care
• Provides mentorship for residents 

Didactics

The didactic components of the training program center on a variety of conferences and hands-on simulation experiences. Examples of regular conferences include Resident Report, Resident Didactic Sessions, Emergency Lecture Series, Grand Rounds, Health Equity Rounds, Morbidity and Mortality Conference, Ethics Conference and a large number of weekly subspecialty conferences. Simulation is incorporated and highly valued in both the pediatric and medicine arenas in the form of mock experiences and regularly scheduled simulation sessions. A favorite and hallmark of our program, our Med-Peds Journal Club convenes monthly over dinner to discuss current topics in patient care and research and provides a forum for residents and their families to gather outside of the hospital.