Our wide variety of Internal Medicine conferences cover inpatient and outpatient medicine, including both rare and common diseases. The Overholt Auditorium has a complete array of multi-media tools to enhance presentation and learning. These include PowerPoint, digital video projection capability (live camera, radiology projection, and VCR for ECHO), slide projectors, overhead projector and dry-erase boards. Gundersen Medical Foundation offers complimentary meals at each morning and noon teaching conference. House staff are able to attend all conferences unless there is a patient in need of immediate care.
Morning Report — This is a cornerstone of our resident education. It runs from 7:30 to 8 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Attendance is expected for all internal medicine residents, other residents, students on internal medicine rotations and selected staff. The Chief resident, a senior resident or GM attending physician moderates a case in a highly interactive fashion. Cases range from "bread and butter" internal medicine where the fine points of management are reviewed, to the rare cases where complete differential diagnosis, test selection and treatment methods are discussed.
Senior residents present the case once a week and summarize the main learning points at the end. All teaching is accomplished with an emphasis on evidence-based and cost-effective medicine principles.
Board Review Class - On Wednesday mornings a small group board review class is held using MedStudy as a guide. The Chief resident leads this class that emphasizes the approach to difficult questions and the "hot points" that will be seen on the ABIM exam.
Noon Conference — These conferences are held each weekday. Various specialty topics, resident presentations, and outside distinguished speakers comprise this most beneficial conference curriculum. This venue is also the setting for Medical Grand Rounds. Special attention at this conference is provided in the beginning of the academic year for our new residents. Several departments present "Emergency" clinical situations for their particular specialty, e.g. "Oncology Emergencies" or "ENT Emergencies."
Journal Club — This is a monthly resident-led, evidenced-based review of current journal articles. Residents choose journal articles relevant to the practice of internal medicine. Statistics are reviewed with one of our biostatisticians in an effort to learn statistical methodology and to judge the relative strengths and weaknesses of the selected articles.
Intern Ethics Seminar — This is a monthly discussion led by Bernard Hammes, Medical Humanities/Ethics, along with various staff. First year residents meet and discuss ethics in a case-based format. Topics are often driven by current clinical experiences in an effort to help residents handle difficult ethical issues that they will face during the remainder of their careers.
Intern Case Conference - This conference, held on Monday's and Wednesday's from July - October, is designed to help prepare interns to manage common and/or urgent problems encountered in their hospital patients. It includes topics such as "chest pain" and "shock," and is aimed at preparing residents for covering patients on night float. All interns complete this series of conferences prior to starting night float.