Conferences
The series of conferences both unique to the Medical House Staff Training Program and Departmental comprise an important component of the overall educational curriculum for the residency. Conferences are didactic or case-based, large and small group, and most importantly all are interactive. With several conferences scheduled daily, residents gain substantive exposure to various topics in internal medicine, clinical reasoning skills, and tools to critically analyze the medical literature. See below to learn more about the individual conference series. |
Our junior and senior residents convene each morning for this daily case-based conference. A resident presents a case to a chief resident and a guest attending who lead an interactive and informal discussion focusing on an interesting aspect of the case, usually the differential diagnosis and diagnostic work-up. Because of its intimacy, level of group participation and quality of cases, morning report is considered by many residents as the premier conference of the training program.
Some sessions are reserved for subjects of particular importance, including pathology, quality assurance and medical ethics. At pathology morning reports, autopsies and cases with interesting pathology specimens are reviewed with guest faculty from the Department of Pathology. At quality improvement conference, systems errors are reviewed with invited faculty, including hospital administration. |
This didactic conference occurs over lunch each day. The conferences at the start of the year comprise the Emergency Lecture Series, which focuses on core topics essential to new interns, such as the approach to chest pain or dyspnea. The noon conferences cover the breadth and scope of topics in internal medicine, and are delivered by faculty attendings who are experts in the topic. Interspersed within these faculty lectures are Senior Talks delivered by senior residents as part of the Teaching Senior curriculum. Another highlight of the noon conference series are the clinical-pathological correlation conferences led by the chief residents where our most challenging and interesting patients are presented to a panel of faculty attendings. |
The Department of Medicine invites nationally, and internationally recognized experts of various fields to address the entire department at this weekly conference on Wednesdays at noon. This is the department’s premier weekly conference and it rarely fails to live up to its reputation.
House staff often have an additional opportunity to interact with invited speakers. This may include dinner the evening before the talk, morning report also given by the speaker, or additional conferences for residents and fellows throughout the day. |
At this weekly conference, interns get an opportunity to learn in a format identical to that of morning report. This is protected learning time for interns as the residents cover their services for that period. |
Chief rounds is an informal and interactive didactic session held Monday through Thursday in the afternoons. It is led by a chief resident or PGY3 resident and is often geared towards interns. Medical students are also welcome to attend. |
Harkness Report, a long-standing tradition at Columbia University, follows noon conference. Junior and senior residents on outpatient rotations convene to present cases to a two-attending panel, including Dr. Ralph Blume, a rheumatologist, as well as a guest attending. Dr. Blume’s reputation and dedication as a senior educator in the Department has led to this conference to be coined as “Blume Rounds”. These sessions provide another forum for resident-level discussion of the more interesting and challenging cases encountered by our residents. |
Junior and senior residents take turns presenting articles at this weekly conference focused on learning to critically appraise the medical literature. Articles are usually presented in the context of clinical questions that arise from the wards or clinics. Faculty from the Divisions of Epidemiology and Biostatistics lead the discussion of research methodology, study design and interpretation of the data. On occasion, a basic science article will be presented, reflecting a research interest of a resident. |
As part of the overall outpatient curriculum, this series of conferences, which complements journal club, provides a structured curriculum over the three years of residency. Led by Dr. Walter R. Palmas, this series systematically covers the approach to Evidence-Based Medicine and provides the residents with a foundation in epidemiology and statistics to properly appraise the medical literature. Dr. Palmas' conversational style has made this small group session a favorite of the house staff.
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As part of the Geriatrics rotation during the PGY1 year, the Residency Program implemented a multidisciplinary palliative care curriculum to address many of the end-of life-issues confronted by our residents. During the 4 modules over the of the month, faculty from throughout the Medical Center address topics such as the psychosocial and spiritual aspects of the dying process, management of pain and other symptoms, depression and delirium in the terminally ill, and ethics and law surrounding end-of-life issues.
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