Dr. Moran with resident and patient

Clinical Curriculum

Introduction

Our program’s essential goal is to produce skilled, compassionate, and well-rounded internists who will excel in any career path. In the clinical realm, we achieve this by:

  • Exposing trainees to a breadth and depth of clinical experiences in general internal medicine and its subspecialties, in both inpatient and outpatient settings
  • Emphasizing the importance of patient-centered care with particular attention to social determinants of health and cultural influences
  • Fostering a positive learning environment that promotes graduated autonomy, camaraderie, diversity, and interdisciplinary collaboration
  • Tailoring training experiences to specific career interests and educational goals

See Division Curriculum

Structure and Schedule

In your search for a residency program, you have likely come across many different scheduling strategies aimed at balancing inpatient and outpatient education. We consider our approach to be one of our greatest strengths. Every third month—for either a half-month or full-month—categorical residents rotate through our continuity clinic. Combined Med-Peds and Med-Psych residents have slightly different continuity clinic arrangements (see respective websites). The remainder of clinical scheduling includes a mixture of inpatient wards, electives, outpatient rotations, and subspecialty consults. Our unique structure ensures that residents and interns spend no more than two consecutive months on inpatient services while still providing flexibility for scheduling changes when needed. Lastly, this allows for weekends off on all outpatient, inpatient consult, elective, and night float rotations!

Inpatient Rotations

Inpatient rotations occur at three hospitals which are all located in the downtown Charleston Medical District: MUSC Main University Hospital (MUH), MUSC Ashley River Tower (ART), and the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center (VAMC). A short walk will take you from the resident parking garage to each of these sites.

General medicine wards and cardiology inpatient teams are comprised of one upper-level resident and two interns. The inpatient hepatology and malignant hematology services are comprised of one upper-level resident and one intern; these teams have lower maximum patient caps and help from a subspecialty fellow as well.

Our residents receive excellent ICU training. Interns spend one month in the MICU, PGY-2 residents spend one month in MICU and one month in VA ICU, and PGY-3 residents typically spend one month in either MICU or VA ICU. Both of our ICUs operate as closed units. You can also elect to complete a rotation in the Cardiovascular ICU as an upper level.

Interns will have approximately 7 months of inpatient rotations with 3-5 of those months being general medicine wards. During the PGY-2 and PGY-3 years, residents have less time scheduled in inpatient rotations and more outpatient, consult, and elective time.

List of all inpatient services:

  • General Medicine Wards – 4 Teams at MUH, 1 Team at ART, and 3 Teams at VAMC
  • Cardiology – 2 Teams at ART
  • Hepatology – MUH
  • Malignant Hematology – ART
  • Stroke Neurology (interns only) – MUH
  • MICU – MUH
  • VA MICU– VAMC (upper-level residents only)
  • Night Float – All Sites

Outpatient Medical Clinics (OMC)

Residents rotate in through outpatient clinics (both continuity clinic and subspecialty clinics) every three months, for either a half-month or full month. A typical week in the clinic includes 6-7 half-days of University Internal Medicine (UIM) continuity clinic, 2-3 half-days of subspecialty clinic or ultrasound training, and one half-day of protected administrative time.

For continuity clinic, each incoming intern assumes a panel of primary care patients handed down from a recently-graduated resident. Patients are typically seen every 3 or 6 months for their routine health care. For any necessary outpatient visits that occur outside of your scheduled clinic blocks, one of your co-residents on your assigned “Color Team” will see the patient, and vice versa. The shared patient pools provide an added level of continuity. Patients are seen in the University Internal Medicine (UIM) clinic at MUSC Rutledge Tower which is located on the downtown MUSC campus. Residents also gain experience in telehealth with video visits. We have a stellar group of primary care faculty who help hone your skills in ambulatory care!

Examples of possible subspecialty outpatient clinics:
Benign Hematology, Cardiology, Dermatology, Endocrinology, ENT, Gastroenterology, Geriatrics, Infectious Diseases, Nephrology, Neurology, Oncology, Pain Management, Pulmonology, Rheumatology, Sleep medicine

Subspecialty Inpatient Consult Rotations:

Examples of subspecialty inpatient consult rotations:
Benign Hematology, Cardiology, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, Geriatrics, Hepatology, Infectious Diseases, Nephrology, Neurology, Oncology Solid Tumor, Palliative Care, Pulmonology, Rheumatology.

Clinical Electives:

We also pride ourselves on working with residents to build unique elective opportunities in Global Health, Dermatology, Ophthalmology, Radiology, and Ambulatory Orthopedics, for example.These rotations can be designed with faculty to suit your interests.

Newly designed electives for residents include Ultrasound Elective, Hospitalist Elective, and Cardiovascular ICU Elective.

Research Elective:

Residents with a mentor and specific project may request a dedicated research block. This frequently results in a presentation at MUSC’s research day, grand rounds, or regional/national conferences and often leads to publication.

POCUS Curriculum:

We integrate POCUS training into multiple areas of our residency program. In addition to didactic ultrasound lectures during Academic half day, residents also get hands-on ultrasound experience in the ICUs, on pulmonary consults, on the general medicine wards, and during the ultrasound rotations incorporated into ambulatory blocks. We have dedicated Butterfly ultrasound probes which can connect to your MUSC issued iPhone for on-the-go ultrasound use.

As mentioned above, we have also created an Ultrasound Elective. At the VA Medical Center simulation lab, residents can learn from two state-of-the-art CAE Vimedix ultrasound simulators.

Night Coverage:

We operate largely on a night float system. We have dedicated night float coverage for MUH General Medicine wards, VA General Medicine wards, ART Cardiology, and ART General Medicine & Malignant Hematology, and MUH Hepatology. Residents do not cover multiple hospitals at night. Upper-level night float residents cover Sunday through Thursday or Friday nights (alternating weeks of Sunday-Thursday and Sunday-Friday night coverage). Upper-level residents on the inpatient teams cover weekend nights as part of 24+4 hour call shifts. In a typical month of inpatient wards, each upper-level resident will have a total of two 24+4 hour weekend call shifts. Residents in the ICUs rotate through night coverage of their respective ICUs for 5-6 nights at a time.

Interns also have a night float structure while on MUH General Medicine wards and in the MICU. For VA General Medicine wards, interns take 24+4 hour call approximately every 5-6 days.

Call Schedule:

On General Medicine wards at MUH and VA, call shifts typically occur every 3 to 4 days and end at 8 pm. On-call residents are responsible for distributing and assisting with admissions, leading rapid responses, and “cross-cover” from 5-8 pm. Each of our inpatient teams admits patients daily, also known as a “drip system”, so new patients are distributed evenly between teams. We also have day float residents who help with afternoon admissions to Cardiology, VA General Medicine wards, and ART General Medicine & Malignant Hematology. Day Float schedule is Monday through Friday with weekends off.

 

Sample Schedules

 

PGY-1

PGY-2

PGY-3

 July Gen Med MUH MICU Gen Med VA
 August Mal Heme | Card CS Gen Med VA MICU
 September  OMC | Endocrine CS OMC OMC | VA ER
 October Stroke | Neuro CS Night Float  Gen Med ART | Inf Dis CS 
 November Gen Med ART Research Elective Gen Med VA
 December OMC | Endocrine CS Liver |OMC OMC
 January MICU Mal Heme  Ambulatory RT
 February Gen Med VA Rheum CS | Heme CS VA ER | Heme CS
 March Nephro CS |OMC OMC Cards CS | OMC
 April Gen Med VA Cardiology Geriatrics
 May Gen Med MUH VICU  Ambulatory VA
 June  Cardiology | OMC  OMC | Onc CS  OMC
 Totals 7.5 Inpatient Months
2.5 CS / Elective Months
2 Outpatient Months
6.5 Inpatient Months
2.5 CS / Elective Months
3 Outpatient Months
3.5 Inpatient Months
2.5 CS / Elective Months
5 Outpatient Months
1 Emergency Medicine Month
 Legend The vertical line indicates split month; ART - Ashley River Tower; CS - Consult Service; ER - Emergency Room; MUH - Main University Hospital; RT - Rutledge Tower; UIM - University Internal Medicine Continuity Clinic; VA - Veterans Affairs Medical Center