Residency
Overview
The Department of Medicine administers four accredited internal medicine residency pathways: the Seattle Categorical Track and the Boise Categorical Track, the Primary Care Internist Track, and the Preliminary Internal Medicine Track for individuals going into other specialties but who would like a year of broad exposure to internal medicine.
Program highlights:
- The UW School of Medicine was recently ranked first in the nation among public institutions, and second overall, for funding from the NIH.
- Primary care tracks at UW were among the first established in the nation.
- We are one of very few programs that are recognized as leaders in both primary care and subspecialty training.
- UW was ranked #1 in Primary Care by US News & World Report for 15 consecutive years, #1 in Rural Medicine, and #6 in Internal Medicine for 2009.
- Residents are highly sought after for positions in academic medicine, fellowships, and community practice.
- WWAMI rotations are unique and popular experiences that give residents opportunities to practice medicine with superb faculty/general internists in small communities in the five-state region of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho (i.e., Soldotna, AK; Livingston, MT; and Jackson Hole, WY).
- Senior residents may elect rotations in international health and research.
- We are expanding opportunities to perform volunteer work during residency to foster commitment to community service.
- Ambulatory blocks offer superb training in subspecialty clinics for the skills needed in primary care as well as enhancing time in GIM continuity clinics.
- While on clinic blocks, residents have extensive training in behavioral medicine, evidence-based medicine and literature search, and primary care topics in weekly conferences presented by residents and faculty.
- Many of the national leaders in medicine and general internal medicine have been trained at UW, and more UW faculty have served as national president of the Society of General Internal Medicine than faculty from any other institution.
Common to all tracks:
- Inpatient experiences in all of the primary affiliated institutions of the University of Washington. (In addition, residents in the Boise Categorical Track spend their second year at the Boise Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Boise, Idaho.)
- While the amount of inpatient and outpatient training differs between the tracks, residents in all tracks have similar experiences and work in a fully integrated manner.
- Night call is no more frequent than every fourth night.
- Research opportunities are available on an elective basis for senior residents.
- Clinic block rotations for all residents consist of a mixture of GIM experiences, subspecialty clinic experiences, and didactics related to primary care internal medicine.
- Residents are evaluated following each rotation.
- Residents meet semi-annually with faculty to discuss performance and career planning.
Emphasis in categorical tracks:
- Broad training in general internal medicine with greater proportion of time on subspecialty electives.
- Most residents in these tracks undertake subspecialty training following their residencies and may eventually enter careers in academic medicine.
Emphasis in the primary care track:
- An extensive training experience in longitudinal and comprehensive care of a defined panel of patients.
- In-depth training in psychosocial aspects of patient care.
- A broad curriculum in related specialties needed to practice general internal medicine, such as dermatology, gynecology, orthopedics, otolaryngology, and ophthalmology.
- Most residents in these tracks enter primary care practices. These residents are also competitive for postgraduate fellowship training or academic medicine careers.