Conferences and Education | Department of Internal Medicine | UC Davis Health

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Curriculum (DICE) information sheet (PDF)
• Information on our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

On our 4+1+1 schedule, interns go to their Academic Half Day whenever they are on the 1+1 part of their schedule.  For upper level residents, on the 4+4 schedule, they have their Academic Half Day on the +4 part of their schedule.

• They have no clinical activities scheduled for that Half Day, and thus it is totally protected teaching time.
• The Academic Half Day takes the place of the more conventional noon conferences, and attendance is dramatically higher due to its protected nature.
• It is a great opportunity for socializing among residents and faculty.
• The Academic Half Day meets Thursdays mornings for residents, and Friday mornings for interns

We cover a large number of areas of medicine, including seminars on distinct disease-specific topics (e.g. diabetes care, anemia, leukemia, ventilator management, Journal Clubs, Diversity Journal Clubs, EKG reading, medical interviewing, evidence-based medicine, cost-conscious care, clinical reasoning, and quality improvement, among others).  We also have simulation sessions on rapid responses, code blues, and central line placements. Lastly, our POCUS curriculum has regular sessions in the Academic Half Days.

We have a curriculum for the intern year, and a 2-year curriculum for the PGY2 and PGY3 classes that covers all of the specialties of medicine.

• Periodically throughout the year, we do board review sessions in the residents’ Academic Half Day.
• Starting in 2023, we purchased NEJM Knowledge Plus and AMBOSS for each of our residents. This is an excellent, interactive board preparation tool. It also has great rotation specific materials to prepare you for each rotation, including seminal literature articles and great review articles.

• Internal Medicine Grand Rounds is held every Thursday at noon and is video-casted to all hospital sites.
• One quarter of these Grand Rounds are dedicated to case-based clinical topics, such as Clinical Solving Problem Cases, where expert clinicians work through an unknown case presented by our chief residents.
• Once a month, we have our Clinical Grand Rounds, where one of our residents presents an outstanding case from our service, with the resident and experts discussing the complexities and learning points from the case.

• We have a monthly Morbidity, Mortality, Quality and Safety Conference (MMQS) on Monday at noon.
• We do M&M cases with faculty and residents, and we also run two separate Departmental QI projects that are chosen and led by the residents (with faculty mentors helping) over the year.  
• We work hard to have this be an educational and never punitive conference.

• Each site has its version of Morning Report, where Chief Residents (or guest resident leaders) moderate a case discussion on common and uncommon medical cases with faculty participation.
• We emphasize the process of clinical reasoning using problem representation, illness scripts, and analytical modes of evaluating cases.
• At the VA and Kaiser sites, some of the morning report time is used for great seminars on radiology reading, M&M, or subspecialist teaching sessions.

• The Primary Care and TEACH residents attend morning report on Tuesdays at UC Davis and we do an outpatient morning report, concentrating on educational cases from clinic, to allow focused discussion on common outpatient problems.

• We utilize the Yale Office-Based Medicine Curriculum, but mainly in small group settings.
• We purchase the NEJM Knowledge Plus/AMBOSS program which has excellent online board and rotation preparation materials.

• One of our Associate Program Directors, Carolina Candotti, is an expert in POCUS, and is part of SHM core POCUS faculty. She started in July 2021 and has redesigned our POCUS training, which now includes a longitudinal POCUS curriculum, monthly didactic POCUS workshops and didactic lectures. Starting this year she also leads a POCUS Track for a subset of residents. Over a 3-year integrative longitudinal curriculum, residents learn to acquire and interpret focused cardiac, pulmonary, abdominal, soft tissue, and procedure ultrasound images. Ultimately, residents learn to integrate this information into their management decisions.

• We have a dedicated series of seminars on quality improvement and patient safety topics, led by our VA hospitalists and VA Chief Residents for Quality and Safety.
• All residents complete a minimum of 2 online modules per year from the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI).
• All residents in our program leave with the essentials of QI. Those interested in more in-depth training join our one-year QI Track.

• UC Davis has a state-of-the-art simulation suite called the Center for Virtual Care.
• Our residents go there for POCUS training, code blue, and central line training sessions. There are LP, thoracentesis, and ophthalmology trainers as well.