Beth Israel Medical Center

Left to right: Soo Jung Kim, preliminary intern Class of 2010, Kengo Ayabe, 

and Neeru Sharma, Class of 2011, now a hematology/oncology fellow at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York.

 

  

Resident feedback about all aspects of the program is regularly sought and highly valued. Whenever new initiatives are started or new policies are considered, feedback from house staff is obtained and is incorporated.

Resident input has led to major Departmental changes, such as...

• 2011 - House Staff Council was formed of peer-elected residents from each year. They work with the Program Directors and Chief Residents on initiatives and issues of various types, and serve as a sounding board and advisory committee.
• 2010 - House staff organized a Research Society to bring together residents, fellows, and attendings that are interested in research and academic pursuits.
• 2010 - In response to the inflow of patients after the closing of St. Vincent's hospital, the house staff suggested increasing the size of the non-teaching service, which lead to an increase in both cardiac and general medicine non-teaching services.
• 2010 - House staff developed a Department of Internal Medicine Survival Guide for all medicine house staff and rotating medical students containing useful numbers, clinical pathways, approaches to read EKGs and ABGs and much more.
• 2010 - Requesting aid from the volume of patients admitted to our cardiac floors, our house staff helped develop a new cardiac non-teaching service (Attending Cardiology Service, ACS) run entirely without interns or residents.
• 2009 - After a request from the house staff, this website was developed to provide useful information for current house staff, medical students, and prospective residency applicants.
• 2009 - House staff requested a format change to resident report via an anonymous online survey, which ultimately lead to the implementation of a Monday and Thursday morning report that involves house staff and attendings, and is one of the favorite teaching forums in the training program.
• 2007 - In response to the inflow of patients after the closing of Cabrini Hospital the house staff gave feedback to the administration that directly led to the development of a new non-teaching service (Attending Directed Service, ADS) currently covering 2.5 medical wards.

In addition, we have an anonymous "online suggestion box" web survey, through which house staff can express views or concerns. This survey is checked weekly, and new submissions are discussed by the chief residents and the program directors at their weekly Cabinet meeting.

  

Left to right:  Patrick Hou, psychiatry intern, Xiaoping Wu, categorical intern, Asaff Harel, preliminary intern

 

House staff have opportunity to give direct input into the design of the training program and to express concerns through various working groups. Each working group is lead by a chief resident and a program director and meets regularly.  

• The Information Services Working Group meets regularly with the hospital Information Services leadership to brainstorm new ideas and processes. 
• The Duty Hours Working Group advises the Program and Departmental leadership on ways to streamline and improve the structure of the inpatient ward teams and ICU experiences in order to maximize efficiency, resident satisfaction and compliance with duty hours and patient caps.
• The Recruitment Working Group is tasked with helping to design the residency recruitment effort. Much of what applicants experience on their interview day was designed based on suggestions of our house staff (including this website!)