Curriculum & Didactics

A residency in internal medicine involves broad exposure to patient care experiences in ambulatory, inpatient and subspecialty care settings. Our residents’ rotations are designed to offer excellent clinical learning that will give you the tools needed to care for patients long after residency is over.

Longitudinal Clinics

As part of your residency, you will participate in longitudinal clinics in Geriatric Medicine, Rheumatology, Community Health and Ambulatory Medicine. These will allow you to experience a disease process and response to treatment in your patients over many months rather than just limiting it to a single four-week experience.

Geriatric Medicine

The Geriatric Medicine longitudinal clinic is an ambulatory setting in our Internal Medicine clinic with Dr. Skotti Church, who is also our Program Director. Residents will learn to identify and manage geriatric syndromes which include falls, frailty, urinary complaints, cognitive changes, polypharmacy and mood disorders.

Rheumatology

Through the Rheumatology longitudinal experience, residents will provide comprehensive care of patients with rheumatologic conditions. These include PMR, Sjögren’s syndrome, lupus, vasculitis, rheumatoid arthritis and more. All aspects of continuous care are emphasized from learning about medications including biologics and to performing procedures relevant to patient conditions.

Ambulatory Medicine

Samaritan offers a resident clinic experience whereby trainees have a panel of patients for their three years. This provides a vital service to our community while helping residents to further hone skills in taking care of patients with multiple medical issues. Support is provided by mental health and care coordinators as needed. Attending physicians, who also manage their own patients, provide supervision, evidence based teaching and real-life pearls throughout.

Traditional Experiences

Good Samaritan offers exposure via recurring three- or four-week blocks to a variety of inpatient and outpatient medicine services, including the following:

Intensive Care

The ICU at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center (GSRMC) offers a robust experience in caring for critically ill patients. Residents have the opportunity to provide care for patients who have experienced various types of shock to respiratory failure to profound acid-base derangements and many other patient conditions. Procedural competence is one of the cornerstone experiences of the rotation and our critical care attendings are passionate about education.

Inpatient Medicine

The inpatient medicine service provides an immersive experience in patient care with teams consisting generally of two interns and one resident. The goal is to provide high-quality care to complex internal medicine patients under the supervision of experienced attending physicians. Consultants in a wide variety of specialties are available as needed. GSRMC also features hospitalist electives through which upper level residents can work side by side with an attending to care for patients or learn the evolution of hospital medicine and future for the career path.

Subspecialty Experiences

Aside from the rotations listed above participating in longitudinal experiences, our residents experience a traditional inpatient and some outpatient mixture of patient experiences during their training. All subspecialties are currently offered at GSRMC, with the exception of Neurology which is offered at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) in Portland, respectively.

Research & Quality Improvement Projects

Residents are given time to explore one or two projects during their three years, with dedicated block rotations in their second year. They enlist the support of a faculty adviser for a quality improvement project or other scholarly activity. They have the support of our research department, complete online IHI modules and meet regularly with the program director. By the end of three years, they are required to present/poster at a conference or submit a paper for publication.

Some examples of recently published or presented projects include:

Prevalence of Acute Coronary Syndrome and Predictive Values of Cardiac Stress Testing at a Community Hospital Emergency Department. Mangum, Sally, PhD, DO; Rich Pham, DO; Olivia Pipitone, MPH; Jesse Greenblatt, MD, MPH. Poster Presentation. ACP Conference. 2017.

HEART Score as a Risk Stratification Tool for Patients with Chest Pain at a Community Emergency Department. Day, Mark, DO; Sally Mangum, PhD, DO; Olivia Pipitone, MPH; Jesse Greenblatt, MD, MPH. Poster Presentation. ACP Conference. 2018.

Further Validation of the HEART Score as an ACS Risk Stratification Tool for Patients Presenting with Chest Pain at a Community Emergency Department. Henery, Daniel, DO; Mark Day, DO; Sally Mangum, PhD, DO; Olivia Pipitone, MPH; Jesse Greenblatt, MD, MPH. Poster Presentation. 2019.

Why Aren’t We Prescribing PrEP? Dubuque, Chris, DO; Janet Zornek, BS; Sugat Patel, MD. Poster Presentation. ACP Conference. 2017.

Improving Collaborative Communication in Co-managed Hospitalist and Orthopedic Operative Patients. Jacqueline Krumrey, MD; Barry Smith, MD; Taylor Brown, DO, MA, MS; Teigen Goodeill, DO; Jared Sanderford, DO; Ben Yousey, DO. Poster Presentation. Samaritan Scholarly Symposium. 2020.

Didactics

Formal classroom teaching takes place during a half-day didactic session once weekly. Faculty lectures, journal club, morbidity & mortality conference, board reviews, radiology lectures, skills training, and resident presentations are some of the activities done on this day. The time is valued and protected for all residents. Didactic by faculty, Journal Club, M&M, Board Review, Radiology Rounds, model training, and resident presentations are some of the activities done on this day.

Educational & Wellness Resources

Each PGY1 receives an laptop with access to journals and texts through our library and access to EPIC, our EMR. Residents receive the latest edition of digital/print MKSAP in their first year and a subscription to NEJM Knowledge+. They also receive an educational stipend to attend a board review course in their third year.

The program takes resident well-being seriously:

• We strictly adhere to all ACGME duty hour limitations. 
• Residents have access to adequate sleep facilities and safe transport options at all the sites. 
• Lactation rooms are available for female residents.
• Residents have access to mental health assessment and self-screening tools. 
• We schedule annual resident retreats. 
• There is ongoing attention to a safe learning and work environment, including attention to supervision, accountability, professionalism, well-being, interprofessional learning and transitions of care. 
• There is now a dedicated Mentoring/Advising Program led by a dedicated faculty member that meets with each resident quarterly and coordinates a three-year faculty mentor for each resident. The program focuses on the whole spectrum of resident needs, from emotional support to career advising.