Inpatient Education

Northwestern’s internal medicine (IM) residency program delivers its most robust form of education on the inpatient services at Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) and Jesse Brown Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center (VA). These services remain the core feature of the curriculum as they are resident-run services, have patients with extraordinary pathology and complexity and are staffed by faculty experts. The balance of resident autonomy with expert faculty support is what makes Northwestern’s IM residency program a premiere education.

NMH: Inpatient Teaching Services

Resident physicians are assigned to dedicated teaching services. Each team is comprised of a single teaching attending, one PGY-2 or PGY-3 resident, two PGY-1 residents and medical students. Geographic localization means all resident patients are teaching service floors and allow for incredible efficiency and teamwork with staff. Structured Interdisciplinary Rounds occur daily. At this session, all members of the healthcare team meet to ensure that all healthcare providers share the same goals of care for each patient. The hospital is extremely well-staffed and run, routinely being placed in the top 20 of all hospitals in the country, allowing residents to focus on patient care and their own education.

Attending physicians are selected to teach on the inpatient medicine service based upon prior teaching evaluations. Faculty are highly invested in the teaching mission and frequently participate in faculty development sessions on everything from bedside teaching to how to give feedback. In addition to inpatient general medicine exposures, residents gain tremendous subspecialty experience and education on one-month rotations including Cardiology, Heme/Onc, Hepatology, MICU and CCU.

Jesse Brown VA

The residency program and medical school are closely affiliated with the VA, located on the west side of Chicago with free shuttle services bringing residents to and from NMH. Our residency program maintains three inpatient general medicine teams that are resident-led, include interns and students and are staffed by Northwestern-affiliated VA teaching attendings. Teams see a wide range of diseases and acuity while being exposed to the more expanded and integrated VA healthcare system. We share the hospital with the University of Illinois at Chicago, allowing for shared education during morning reports and noon conferences. Approximately one-quarter of Northwestern’s IM residency experience is at the VA. It remains an extremely popular and effective experience because of the breadth of disease and the ability to serve the veteran population. Residents gain tremendous experience and education on one-month rotations on general medicine wards, the ICU, and the ER.