Our Med-Peds residents meet weekly every Thursday as a group to discuss a variety of topics specific to Med-Peds physicians, with special attention to medical care for young adults with special health care needs as they transition from the pediatric to the adult setting and other issues unique to Med-Peds training that are not found elsewhere in the curriculum.   This year we have overhauled our curriculum so that all of our Med-Peds conferences involve interactive group discussion and limited to no PowerPoint lectures.  We want all participants to be actively engaged and helping each other to answer test questions, discussing common issues in the hospital or clinic together, or sharing approaches to clinical decision-making.  We also have quarterly sessions focusing on resident wellness and mindfulness.  In addition, the third Thursday of the month is generally when all Med-Peds residents attend the simulation center for hands on workshops on common urgent, emergent, and life-threatening pediatric scenarios. We are very excited about our new curriculum and the feedback has been outstanding so far.

Our third-year residents will present a case discussion of a patient that is of educational interest to both internists and pediatricians. Residents, as well as faculty from both the pediatrics and internal medicine residency programs, attend this conference. In the past, cases such as young adults with special healthcare needs, cystic fibrosis and tuberculosis have been presented.

This combined conference enables our residents to educate our categorical medicine and pediatrics colleagues about clinical and health system issues that are important to the care of patients as they transition from childhood to adulthood.

Each fall and spring, all of our residents meet as a group for a four-hour workshop covering a topic that is specific to the needs of Med-Peds residents. Coverage is provided to make sure that everyone is able to attend. This fall, our workshop is “Women’s Health Issues” and will feature a variety of speakers and interactive sessions on various clinical scenarios and LARC insertion training.

These workshops provide an opportunity for our residents to look more closely at issues that affect them as Med-Peds practitioners. It is also a way for our group to meet together with some of the many Med-Peds teaching faculties in our health system.

Every three months, our residents and faculty will get together at the home of one of our residents for an evening to socialize and to review a clinical topic. These sessions usually last from 7-9 p.m. with plenty of time for conversation among our residents. We time these meetings to coincide with the transition from medicine to pediatrics four times a year.

These sessions give the residents the chance to socialize and to share experiences with each other to help prepare for the transitions between specialties. In addition, it gives us a chance as a group to become more familiar with a clinical topic that is relevant to Med-Peds practitioners. A common clinical question is posed to the group, and each resident will seek to answer that question with their own literature search.

• Each resident summarizes their article in five to seven minutes
• Chance to become familiar with one article in depth
• Develop an appreciation for the range of literature on a common clinical topic

Every Friday afternoon, our Med-Peds coordinator, Kelli DaSilva compiles a list of all the categorical internal medicine and pediatric noon conferences for the following week and emails it to the Med-Peds residents. Since our adult and children’s hospitals are in the same building, our Med-Peds residents are free to attend the noon conference that has the most educational value to them.

Kelli tracks conference attendance closely to ensure that each resident’s overall conference attendance is equal between internal medicine and pediatrics. The categorical noon conferences are highly educational, clinically relevant topics presented by our teaching faculty.

Our Med-Peds residents also are required to attend regularly scheduled educational activities in the department in which they are currently rotating. These activities include:

• Grand rounds
• Morning report
• Journal clubs
• Morbidity and mortality conferences in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics departments

In the PGY-3 year, our Med-Peds residents are required to submit and present an educational clinical case report to the South Carolina American College of Physicians (SC ACP) meeting. Residents receive feedback and mentorship on their case presentation and are provided with financial support to attend the meeting.

In the PGY-4 year, our Med-Peds residents are required to present a quality improvement project to the South Carolina American Academy of Pediatrics (SC AAP) meeting. Our residents conduct a longitudinal quality improvement project as part of their ambulatory clinic experience over the course of three years. Residents receive feedback and mentoring on this project as well. Financial support is also provided for the residents to attend this meeting.