Intern Year

Inpatient-  Approximately seven months of your first year is spent divided between the Academic Medical Service (general internal medicine wards) at Good Sam and the Phoenix VA Medical Center. Interns assume primary responsibility and write all orders for their patients under the direction of their supervising resident and faculty. You will be exposed to a myriad of medical illnesses in patients who come from all different economic and ethnic backgrounds. Each intern is allowed to admit up to five patients per call day and is responsible for no more than 10 patients at any time.

ICU Experience- As an intern, you rotate at the VA for one month in the combined ICU/CCU. There you will be supervised by residents, fellows, and full-time intensivists and learn about common and uncommon medical problems encountered in the intensive care setting. In addition, you will spend time at Good Sam's state-of-the-art Simulation Center, learning to run codes and attain additional proficiency in procedural skills. Work is done in shifts, with only one weekend per month. No overnight call is taken.

Ambulatory- All interns have one-half day of continuity clinic each week under the supervision of one attending. During this experience, you are the patient's primary care provider, and begin to learn the basics of outpatient medicine and cost-effective, efficient patient care.

Typical PGY-1 Schedule

*Vacations allowed during these months for a total of three weeks.

PGY-2 Year

Inpatient- During the PGY-2 year, you will continue to assume responsibility for direct patient care; however, your focus shifts to supervisor, team leader, and teacher, again under the supervision of academic faculty.  More months are spent on elective rotations exploring your own individual interests. The required geriatric rotation is usually completed during this year. Also, most residents will do their research selective this year. During this month, you design a research project in conjunction with an academic faculty member after attending lectures in evidence-based medicine, clinical research design, basic medical biostatistics and epidemiology. You will also be involved in various projects with the EIP (see "EIP", home page).

ICU/CCU Experience- At Good Sam, our main priority for the critical care experience of our residents is educational, as opposed to service-oriented. As such, you will receive dedicated one-on-one teaching in critical care by our academic faculty intensivists, who are in the hospital 24 hours, 7 days a week. You are also an integral part of our Rapid Response Team. Overnight call is every fourth night. Your rotation at the VA is a more traditional ICU/CCU experience. There, education is also from academic faculty intensivists and pulmonary/critical care fellows. Call is every fourth night, and every day after the post call day is a day off!

Ambulatory- As in the PGY-1 year, you will continue to spend one-half day weekly in your continuity clinic, forming meaningful relationships with your patients. Your ambulatory block month is done in your second or third year. This block offers many educational experiences including a clinic improvement project, a mobile clinic for homeless adolescents, experience with HIV/AIDS and hemophilia, subspecialty clinics, group visits (e.g., Diabetes Day) and care of the underpriveleged.

Typical PGY-2 Schedule

*Vacations allowed during these months for a total of three weeks.

PGY-3 Year

Inpatient and ICU- The responsibilities of the third year resident are similar to those of the second year. 

Ambulatory- During your third year of training, you will spend more time on electives honing your interests and refining your skills. Additional experiences in office orthopaedics, dermatology, gynecology, flexible sigmoidoscopy, cardiac treadmills, office ophthalmology, adolescent medicine, and ENT are available. The required geriatric rotation and research selective month must be completed if not done during the second year. This year, you will spend an extra half day a week in the outpatient office setting working with a practicing internist or subspecialist of your choice in addition to your continuity clinic.

Typical PGY-3 Schedule

*Vacation allowed during these months for a total of three weeks.