A variety of different conferences designed to provide a broad educational experience for the Internal Medicine housestaff are held on a regularly scheduled basis.  Most of these conferences occur during “protected time” – times when no other patient care activities are scheduled and during which hospital staff is asked not to page residents except in emergency situations.  This allows the residents to devote their full attention to their educational program.  A brief description of the resident focused conferences is given below.  In addition to these conferences, each of the subspecialties has case-based oriented conferences in which housestaff are always welcome to attend and participate.

Morning Teaching Conferences

Morning Report

Daily presentation of a single case by a senior resident using computer generated slides with the discussion focused on the diagnostic and therapeutic approach to the patient.

Pathology Conference

Monthly conference reviewing a real patient case and their pathologic demise with the Pathology Department.

EKG Conference

Monthly conference presented by Cardiology fellows reviewing and interpreting difficult EKG’s.

Procedures Conference

Monthly conference instructing residents the appropriate techniques for performing procedures required by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Patient Safety Conference

Monthly conference reviewing a recent case on the internal medicine service where there was an adverse patient event.  This is followed by an interactive resident and staff discussion to improve current procedures in the hope of preventing a similar event.

Ethics

Monthly interactive conference reviewing recent cases that raised difficult ethical issues.

Afternoon Teaching Conferences

Grand Rounds

Weekly conference discussing a topic of current interest in internal medicine.

Noon Conference

Daily curriculum-based didactic conference presented by a member of the UMKC faculty. The first two months of the year are devoted to emergencies in medicine.

Journal Club

Monthly conference discussing a recent journal article from the internal medicine literature, with a focus on critically interpreting the literature and developing an understanding of biostatistics.

Case Conferences

Weekly to monthly conferences held by the endocrinology, gastroenterology, cardiology, hematology/oncology, and pulmonary/critical care services discussing the management of selected patients under their care.

Ambulatory Conference

Monthly conference reviewing different topics as they relate to out-patient medicine.  Topics covered are a monthly review of the web-based Johns Hopkins Ambulatory Medicine Modules.

Board Review Conference

Monthly interactive and self-assessing conference reviewing ABIM certifying exam style questions.

Emergencies in Medicine

Conferences for the PGY-I and PGY-II level resident during the months of July and August.  This conference replaces the normal Noon Conference for the first two months of residency to prepare the resident for medical problems they may encounter in the ER.

Practice Management/Business in Medicine

A special lecture series designed for the Upper Level resident during the month of July.  We have had multiple requests over the last few years to develop a Practice Management Curriculum.  Our curriculum committee has been reviewing options and has settled on the format of presentations in anticipation that the material covered may be of most interest to residents who may be going into a practice the following year.