Transitional Year Residency curriculum
Contact usOur curriculum provides a broad, clinically based educational experience, while allowing flexibility to meet individual educational needs.
Required rotations
The ACGME requires Transitional Year curriculum to include 28 weeks of fundamental clinical skills rotations, one block of Emergency Medicine and one block of ambulatory care. To meet these criteria, our requirements include:
- 4 blocks Aurora St. Luke’s Internal Medicine Teaching Service (IMTS)
- 1 block Internal Medicine Teaching Service Wards – Aurora Sinai Medical Center or 1 block in the Medical Intensive Care Unit
- 1 block Ambulatory Care Clinic
- 1 block Emergency Medicine
- 6 blocks elective rotations
Internal Medicine Teaching Service
The Internal Medicine Teaching Service (IMTS) is an Internal Medicine ward service comprised of four teams in an every-fourth-day call schedule with rotating night coverage.
Full-time and voluntary faculty, senior Internal Medicine residents and IM/TY interns staff the teams. Teams also include medical students and Physician Assistant students. The teams admit house cases from the emergency department and members of the Internal Medicine staff voluntarily admit patients to the on-call team, providing a wide spectrum of pathology and patient demography.
Unlike many university programs, there are no competing ward services to limit access to interesting patients. Twenty to thirty percent of admissions are from private staff, while the remaining are “house cases”; all are staffed by the teaching attending. At least one faculty member and the chief resident as well as the IMTS house staff usually attend our daily morning report, which includes specialty conferences.
Elective rotations
Our large specialty staff, in-house residency programs, and academic affiliations allow us to offer a wide variety of clinical rotations at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center and affiliated institutions.
Elective rotation assignments are finalized only after Transitional Year residents have had a chance to talk to the previous year’s Transitional Year residents; review written rotation evaluations; and discuss the curriculum and educational goals with the program directors. Changes in rotation choices are frequently allowed throughout the year.
Our list of elective rotations, some of which are offered at our affiliated campuses, include:
- Ambulatory care block rotation
- Anesthesiology
- Cardiology
- Critical care coronary unit
- Dermatology
- Diagnostic radiology/nuclear medicine
- Endocrinology
- Gastroenterology
- General surgery
- Geriatrics
- Infectious disease
- Medical intensive care unit
- Nephrology
- Neurology
- Neurosurgery
- Obstetrics/gynecology
- Ophthalmology
- Oncology
- Orthopedics/sports medicine
- Palliative care
- Otolaryngology
- Pathology
- Pediatrics
- Plastic surgery
- Psychiatry
- Pulmonology
- Radiation oncology
- Rheumatology
- Surgical intensive care unit
- Urology
- Vascular medicine
- Wound care/HBO
Open elective
Residents have an opportunity to design a rotation not routinely offered, such as a research month, a third-world experience or a clinical rotation not normally provided in our curriculum.
Over the last several years, one-third of our residents have taken advantage of this opportunity.
Didactics
Because most of our didactics are attended by all of Aurora St. Luke's housestaff, our conferences are clinically oriented and broad-based. Our staff-wide conference schedule (weekly unless otherwise specified) includes:
- Endocrinology Case Conference
- Medical Knowledge/Clinical Skills Conference
- Medical Grand Rounds
- Residents' Case Conference
- Tumor Board (biweekly)
- Clinical Radiology Conference (monthly)
- Pulmonary Case Conference (monthly)
- IMTS Clinical Pathology Conference (monthly)
In addition, a number of conferences and training experiences are designed specifically for the Transitional Year resident, including:
- Two-month Acute Care Lecture Series (July–August)
- Transitional Year Resident Journal Club (weekly)
- Transitional Year Residents Case Conference
- A.C.L.S./Advanced Life Support
- Core Skills Half-Day Seminar Series
Annual Transitional Year residents also experience a two-day retreat. Relevant career and professional issues are discussed in a relaxed environment. Spouses and family members are welcome.
Evaluation
We strive to provide prompt evaluation and feedback to all residents. Our close involvement in the rotational and didactic curriculum allows us to know our interns well and to be available for direction and feedback.
Program directors meet each resident at the beginning of the year to review the rotational schedule and discuss educational goals and expectations. Reviews are held three times a year to evaluate resident performance and receive resident feedback regarding program and faculty performance.
Following each rotation, residents and faculty evaluate each other via an automated, confidential online evaluation system.
Apply to the residency
Learn how to apply to the Aurora Transitional Year Residency program. Get information about candidate requirements and the application process.