How would you describe the culture of your residency?
Overall, we promote a culture of health, wellbeing, and inclusivity. A strength of our program’s culture and that of Cleveland Clinic, we strive to create a diverse environment with trainees from across the globe. Our residents proudly hail from various backgrounds, literally from all over the world. Additionally, as an institution and as a program, we provide top-flite education for our residents which enables them to deliver world-class care to our patients.
Aligned with the culture and projects of Cleveland Clinic, we also recruit faculty and staff from different cultures and backgrounds that also fosters diversity.
Further, the program, despite its large size is close-knit and family-friendly in nature. Throughout our program there are strong friendships and relationships between the residents as well as between them and their staff, which helps create a very safe learning environment and foster healthy work-life integration.
How has your program supported resident wellness?
Resident wellness is something that is of the upmost value in our residency, and this is evident not only in the great camaraderie between residents but also in the different activities we do. We host Weekly “Wellness Wednesday” rounds, providing food during conference and and free access to multiple fitness resources. We also host numerous events throughout the year on various occasions where residents can gather outside work and have a good time. The Cleveland Clinic House Staff Association also collaborates with us on a variety of such activities. Residents also love working with all the staff across different specialities given how humble and approachable everyone is, which further fosters resident wellness.
Resident wellness is also evident in our priorities as we are working to eliminate 24-hr call and restructure our admissions process and discharge workflows to ensure admissions distributed equitable among every team.
Finally, within our program and within Cleveland Clinic, there is a culture that support wellbeing of every provider. The Caring for the Caregivers program is available to all residents, free of charge. We also feature a robust coaching program and every resident has an advisor that serves as a coach, mentor, and sponsor through out their residency.
How has your program supported diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) either at your institution or in the surrounding community?
We are actively developing a residency DEI council, which will include resident and faculty members. The council will inform residency retention, recruiting, pipeline initiatives as well as curricular delivery and in creating an inclusive throughout the program. The DEI council will align with Enterprise-wide DEI initiatives and programs. Additionally, we have a longitudinal curriculum during our ambulatory clinic weeks called, “Contemporary Topics in Medicine” where topics such as implicit bias and social determinants are health are at the fore front. Further, the Cleveland Clinic House Staff Association, institute wide trainee run association for all residents and fellows, also prioritizes DEI with regular minorities in medicine lecture series, mentorship opportunities and monthly Food for Cultural Education Events where various cultures are highlighted, and food is catered from that culture while learning about the featured culture over a noon lecture.
What are unique features of your program that you would like to highlight?
The Cleveland Clinic is one of the best-rated hospitals in the world with an international reputation in all areas of Medicine. Within that setting, our program is comprised of a diverse group of residents from all over the world who are themselves are proud to be members of the communities in which we practice. We care for a diverse population of patients as well ranging from referrals from oversees to underserved patients in the Cleveland metro area.
Our educational outcomes are outstanding. Our ABIM board pass rate over the past 3 years in ~98%. Our graduates are incredibly successful in the subspeciality fellowship match with a near 100% match rate in medicine sub-specialties. Our graduates are also extremely competitive for employment with some of our resident securing employment opportunities before the end of their PGY-2 year.
Importantly, we are offering a new longitudinal Point of Care Ultrasound Curriculum (POCUS) for all residents that will be permanently part of the residency in the next academic year. Combined with other procedure-based electives, we are proud to offer these expericnes to our trainees. Additionally, we strive to achieve excellent teamwork during training while residents rotate on more than 30 different core and sub-specialty services. Residents always appreciate rotating with excellent staff physicians across the spectrum of medicine subspecialties who dedicate their time for their teaching. Residents also find plenty of opportunity for mentorship and involvement in extracurricular activities such as research. Besides, our program is unique in providing several different tracks including a Veterans Affairs Center of Excellence track, a Clinical Educator track, clinical scholar’s program, and hospital medicine tracks. We offer opportunities for a well-rounded medical and subspecialty training with opportunities, for example, to work in predominately underserved minority communities and for LGBTQ training and exposure through rotations at our LGBTQ clinic.
Is there any advice that you would like to share with the LMSA community?
Although, the Internal Medicine program at Cleveland Clinic is a large residency program, please do not feel intimidated because there is someone here for everyone. We pride ourselves on not only being a family but on having that intimate feel. Most of our trainees leave with a world class education and life-long friends. Please reach out to us at imchiefs@ccf.org with any questions.
Contact:
Email: wadror@ccf.org
Name: Richard Wardrop III, MD, PhD, FAAP, FACP