Note: The academic calendar runs from July 1st to June 30th and consists of thirteen 28-day blocks; however, the first and last block may be longer or shorter than 28 days.

*Vacation weeks are scheduled consecutively

AMBULATORY MEDICINE

Queen Emma Clinics     Back to Top
All PGY 1 residents spend two blocks and PGY 2 and 3 residents spend one block each in the Queen Emma Clinics. The QEC experience is a combination of ambulatory primary care and sub-specialty clinics. Sub-specialty clinics include Infectious Diseases, Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Endocrinology, Nephrology, Neurology, Rheumatology, Dermatology, Ophthalmology, Sports Medicine, Pulmonology, Oncology, HIV, Gynecology, and Psychiatry. These ambulatory care rotations emphasize health promotion and disease prevention. QEC has a large proportion of underinsured and uninsured patients with challenging socioeconomic issues in addition to their medical conditions. There is an ethnically-diverse patient base with no predominant ethnic group and a large number of recent immigrants.

QEC Firms
Residents are assigned to teams called Firms. Each Firm is assigned a nurse, medical assistants and registrars and has their own population of assigned patients, attending physicians, and residents.

The Firm system provides a cohesive working group for the care of patients and allows for close and consistent working relationships in the clinic setting. Each Firm has a Firm Director, who is a faculty member who teaches regularly in the clinic setting. The Firm Director develops a working relationship with each resident on that Firm over the course of the year and is also an anchor for the residents throughout their residency.

VA Ambulatory Care Clinics  Back to Top
PGY 1 and PGY 3 residents spend one block each at the Veterans Affairs Ambulatory Medicine Clinics, located on the grounds of the Tripler Army Medical Center. This rotation provides outstanding experience in specialty clinics, which include Pulmonology, Nephrology, Allergy, Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Rheumatology, Neurology, Dermatology, Endocrinology, and Hematology. Residents are also exposed to Primary Care walk-in clinics. Residents complete self-study modules in Systems-based Practice during the VA rotation.
 

Continuity Clinics
The Continuity Clinic experience is one of the most rewarding aspects of our residency training. Residents have the opportunity to develop a panel of patients that they will care for over the entire course of training. These patients come to see the resident as their doctor and the resident comes to see them as personal patients as well. Assuming this responsibility and developing these kinds of long-lasting relationships takes a great deal of effort and commitment on both the part of the physician and patient. In an effort to foster the development of these kinds of relationships, the concepts of continuity and accountability are emphasized. In practical terms, continuity refers to how often a resident actually sees a particular patient, while accountability refers to the amount of control and responsibility a resident is willing and able to assume with patient’s long term and acute care. Both of these qualities are highly desirable products of our training program.

All residents are assigned to a Continuity Clinic at least one afternoon per week with more frequent sessions beginning in the 2009-2010 academic year. UHIMRP Continuity Clinic sites are: Kaiser Honolulu and Mapunapuna Clinics, The Queen Emma Clinics (QEC), Waikiki Health Center, Pearl City Medical Associates, Kalihi-Palama Downtown Clinic, and various private physician offices.

INPATIENT GENERAL INTERNAL MEDICINE  Back to Top
Inpatient Medicine rotations are located at The Queen’s Medical Center and Kuakini Medical Center. These are private non-profit, community-based hospitals affiliated with the University of Hawai‘i’s John A. Burns School of Medicine. The Directors of Medical Education, who are also Associate Program Directors, and the Chief Medical Residents at each institution, are primarily responsible for ensuring that the goals of excellence in resident learning are met.

At The Queen’s Medical Center there are two University Hospitalist Services. Two interns and one upper-level resident are under the supervision of a Hospitalist attending who is also the teaching attending. They hold combined work-teaching rounds on a daily basis. There are two Medical Team Care services in which residents admit patients under the supervision of Program-credentialed private physicians granted “Medical Team Care” privileges. In addition to their teaching encounters with the Medical Team Care attending, residents on Medical Team Care services have bedside teaching attending rounds three times a week with paid faculty teaching attendings.

Residents see a wide range of patients of varying age and gender with a diversity of cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic characteristics. Residents become comfortable taking care of common inpatient Internal Medicine problems. Also, they have the opportunity to learn from patients with conditions that are unique to our Pacific island location and environment or more prevalent in particular ethnic groups. At The Queen’s Medical Center, overnight call does not occur more than every fourth night.

At Kuakini Medical Center there are four general inpatient medicine teams. One to two interns and one upper level resident are under the supervision of Medical Team Care physicians whose patients may be on general floors or in the intensive care unit. Paid faculty teaching attendings make bedside teaching rounds with resident teams three times a week on general floor patients, while paid faculty teaching intensivists make daily bedside teaching rounds on patients in the intensive care unit. At Kuakini Medical Center, there is no overnight call for interns.