Curriculum

Rotations

1st year
Orientation - 1 month

This rotation allows our incoming interns a stress-free transition period into residency. During this month members of our faculty will provide didactic sessions on core medical subjects that will better prepare you for your upcoming rotations. In addition, you will begin to learn about the business of medicine which includes billing, coding, office dynamics, and much more. You will also start seeing patients several half-days throughout the month. This will give you the opportunity to learn how the office operates. We also take this opportunity to introduce you to the surrounding community and to those organizations with whom we interact. Last but not least, we all get together to have fun and socialize with our new residents at our annual picnic. This is a traditional event and is attended by faculty, residents, office staff and their families. Here are some comments made by residents who have recently passed through orientation: 

"Orientation made for an easy transition from medical student to resident." 

"Orientation alleviated many of my fears and stresses about starting my residency. It also gave me the opportunity to meet all of my fellow residents and most of the faculty."

Family Medicine Inpatient Service - 2 months

Our inpatient medicine service is a full service Family Medicine Team run by our very own faculty and residents. One of the things that distinguish us from many other family medicine programs is the degree of control our residents have over our inpatient medicine service. We run our team from the bottom up. Our interns are the primary care givers and are encouraged to take an active role in managing their patients. The seniors provide teaching and guidance while overseeing admissions and discussing key management issues. The attending plays the role of a mentor and ensures that the team's management plan is sound and evidence based. While always being there for questions or concerns, our attendings also promote independent thinking and problem solving on the part of the residents to better prepare them for life after residency. They also offer unique insights into cases gained from their years of experience as family physicians. 

Our team is generally composed of 2 interns, 3-4 senior residents (PGY II and III's), 0-2 medical students, and a supervising faculty member. While our team admits for many private family physicians in the area, the decision-making and care of the patient are placed solely under control of the team and its supervising physician. This ensures a more constructive day spent with one faculty member and consistency in the care of our patients. 

Interns are never left alone on call. A supervising resident is in-house with them at all times for teaching and practical purposes. 

Pediatrics - 2 months 

The first year pediatrics experience is divided into one month of inpatient pediatric floors and one month of pediatric emergency medicine. During your inpatient floor experience you will work with a pediatric attending, 2-4 Wayne State medical students, and 1-2 second year family practice resident. You will work with children from birth to age 18 who have a variety of pathology. The large majority of what you will see will be the medical conditions common to children, "the bread and butter." You will also be responsible for rounding on the clinic newborn nursery service. In the ER you will have the opportunity to see a large amount of pediatric urgent care and work up patients to be admitted. 

As a second year you will take on a more supervisory role on the inpatient pediatric service. You will assume responsibility for overseeing the newborn nursery and supervising interns taking pediatric admissions. 

Most frequently requested info about the pediatrics experience: 
There is no overnight call.  Resident can expect one weekend day on service per week.

Interns are never in-house alone- there is always a second-year resident and/or a pediatric attending in house and the NICU is right next door.

Obstetrics - 1 month

Corewell Health Wayne Hospital has a busy community, state-of-the-art L&D unit. Both months of OB as an intern will be spent on the Labor and Delivery floor at Corewell Health Wayne Hospital. Since there are no OB residents rotating at Wayne, this gives you an opportunity to get a great deal of hands-on experience early on in your residency. However, the option is available for the resident to spend their second month at Corewell Health Dearborn Hospital one of the busiest obstetrical programs to southeastern Michigan with over 5,000 deliveries per year. During this month you will learn common obstetrical procedures such as amniotomy, IUPC and FSE placement, as well as episiotomy/laceration repair and their indications. You will also have the opportunity to go through the credentialing process for circumcision and first assisting on Cesarean Sections if you so choose. Continuity OB patients that you will follow in your office throughout their pregnancy supplement this experience. You will deliver these patients and then take care of both the mother and the infant postpartum.

Orthopedics/Sports Medicine - 1 month 

During this rotation you will spend time with a local orthopedist seeing and diagnosing common musculoskeletal problems. Under their guidance you will perfect your musculoskeletal physical exam. You will also be given the opportunity to further practice your casting/splinting and learn to do joint injections when indicated.

Geriatrics - 1 month 

Our first year geriatrics rotation offers a wonderful introduction to the care of our growing geriatrics population. This strong foundation is then expanded upon longitudinally throughout the next two years as residents take responsibility for nursing home calls, rounds, and admissions on a rotating basis. The rotation is based at Mission Point, a large comprehensive senior center that offers area seniors long term care, as well as, skilled nursing care. During this rotation, you will also see outpatients who live independently and in assisted living communities by joining with faculty on home visits. You will also work with a geriatrician in their office-based practice and participate in the fellowship didactics.

Surgery - 1 month 

ICU - 1 month 

Our ICU is based at Corewell Health Wayne Hospital, which maintains a busy 16-bed combined Med/Surg intensive care unit. It is staffed by a group of full time intensivists who are extremely dedicated to teaching our residents. They are always happy to take time out to teach and supervise procedures. Our in-house ICU rotation provides the intern with a rich, one-on-one, learning experience in this setting. There is no overnight call and weekend rounds are limited. You have the opportunity to attend the fundamentals of critical care course.

Community Medicine - 1 month

The first-year community medicine month allows our residents to connect with our community. This is an experiential month in which our residents work firsthand with our major community partners, Zaman International and C-ASSIST, in both clinical and nonclinical outreach. Our residents also familiarize themselves with our local social work resources, the HIV clinic, TB clinic, Wayne County Health Department, a local domestic violence shelter, etc. Connecting with our youth and local schools is also a large part of this experience. The overarching goal of the longitudinal curriculum is to improve our community through education, volunteerism, and advocacy.

2nd year

Pediatrics - 1 month

Community Medicine - 2 weeks
See description above.

Corewell Health Wayne Hospital is one of the Top 100 Cardiac Care Centers in the country. We have a large volume of cardiac related procedures and surgery. As such, we have an extremely busy 16-bed ICU and cardiac step-down unit. During your time here you will see and learn to manage the acute coronary syndromes, life-threatening arrhythmias, and many other cardiac problems. You will have the opportunity to work with the cardiologists and have your diagnostic and therapeutic cardiology skills seeing common and uncommon presentations.

Newborn Nursery and Obstetrics - 1 month

The second year resident is responsible for all babies who are born in Corewell Health Wayne Hospital. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about routine care of the well newborn, however your experience will not be limited to well newborns. There is still a wide range of pathology seen at the hospital, including sepsis, respiratory distress, and structural heart disease. You will become an expert at newborn examination and be able to recognize and initiate treatment on a variety of different neonatal pathologies. You will also grow your continuity practice. This month also provides an opportunity to gain more obstetrics experience and care for the mother-baby dad.

Gynecology - 1 month 

During this rotation you will work one-on-one with a GYN faculty and see patients in the GYN clinic. You may also become competent doing appropriate GYN procedures that you may someday practice in your office (e.g.IUD placement Nexplanon, and biopsies to name a few). This experience supplements the GYN you will see in your own office practice.

Behavioral Health - 1 month 

During this rotation you will work with psychiatrists, psychologists, and other behavioral science faculty. You will learn how to diagnose and manage the common psychiatric problems that often present in the primary care setting. These include anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia as well as the various personality disorders. You will also learn to manage common psychiatric disorders in children. You will learn about behavioral modifications therapies used to treat a variety of different disorders.

Procedures - 1 month 

Our program prides itself on the degree of procedural training that our residents receive. This is made possible by both our outstanding faculty as well as our dedicated sub-specialists. Residents are given the opportunity to become proficient in office procedures such as colposcopy, vasectomy, joint and trigger point injections, I & D's, endometrial biopsy, indirect flexible laryngoscopy, excision/destruction/biopsy of the various "lumps and bumps." In order to ensure that our residents receive adequate exposure, we have incorporated an entire month dedicated to procedures into our second year curriculum. This allows the residents to supplement the procedures they perform on their own patients with experience gained by a more concentrated experience with patients that come from the faculty pool. Our residents, under the supervision of our faculty as well as ICU staff physicians, often perform inpatient procedures such as central lines, arterial lines, Quinton catheters, PA catheters, trans-venous pacemakers, lumbar puncture, thoracentesis, paracentesis, and chest tube placement.

Emergency Medicine-  1 month 

3rd year

Family Medicine Inpatient Service - 2 months

See description above.

Practice Management - Longitudinal study

One of the many things that distinguish our program from many others is our dedication to teaching the resident about the business of medicine. Practice management is taught longitudinally throughout all years and culminates with focused teaching the third year. During this longitudinal third year experience we discuss office/practice design, interviewing, contracts, economics, documentation, administrative issues, as well as strategies for balancing personal life and family with work. This has been well received by our residents and we expect this to prepare them to thrive in the real world and aid them in developing a lucrative practice that tailors to their needs and interests. 

A recent graduate had this to say about practice management: "It helped me prepare for interviews, evaluate offers, and ultimately find a practice that was perfectly suited to me." 

ENT/Ophthalmology - 1 month 

This outpatient sub-specialty rotation provides exposure to some of the common ENT and eye problems that will often initially present in your office. You will do 2 weeks of ENT and 2 weeks of Ophthalmology. You will learn to evaluate and treat a variety of these conditions under the guidance of a local otolaryngologist and ophthalmologist. You will also get the opportunity to perform ENT procedures such as indirect flexible laryngoscopy, learn how to obtain a good eye exam for your diabetic patient and ophthalmology emergency management. There is no call or weekend commitments with this rotation.

Urology - 1 month 

During this month you will learn to manage common urologic disorders that will likely present in your office. You will also learn about various treatment options and services provided by urologists as well as the indications for referral. Under the guidance of a urologist you will also perform urologic procedures that lie within the scope of family practice (e.g. vasectomy). There is no call or weekend commitments with this rotation.

Electives - 3 months 

Choose from a multitude of existing electives or design your own. One of our resident's favorite electives is the experience offered at Mackinac Island. (Note: This rotation is not sponsored or run by our program and residents from other programs in Michigan also participate.) You will serve as the island physician for 2 weeks. An attending physician is present on the island at all times to answer questions, however, the majority of the time you will work independently. Of course, there is also plenty of time to enjoy the old world sights and sounds of the historic island. Living accommodations are provided in new apartments conveniently located just above the clinic. Our residents have found this to be a valuable experience that lent them confidence in their transition to becoming attending physicians.

Patient Safety Chief – 1 month

During this month the resident operates as a sub-attending, on the Family Medicine Inpatient Service. This rotation is devised to teach the residents systems based practice and patient safety. The resident is in charge cataloguing any safety events and reporting them in the hospital system. The resident also works closely with the attending and our Care Manager to ensure the safe transition of our patients to their next level of care. The resident has the opportunity to attend and participate in our Hospital Quality and Safety meeting, Medical Staff Professional Review Committee, and the weekly Safety Event Response Team meeting where ever safety event is discussed and managed. The resident also has the opportunity to participate in local and system-wide Root Cause Analysis meetings. There are no weekends and no call for this rotation.

Sports Medicine – 1 month

Under the direction of our Sports Medicine trained Family Medicine faculty, the resident will learn thorough joint exams including the use of ultrasound in diagnosis and treatment. Our residents learn joint injections, casting and splinting as well as general care of athletic injuries. Through our participation with the Wayne-Westland school district, the residents attend and participate as the sideline team physician.

Nephrology – 1 month

Given the frequency of kidney disease in patients, we devised this rotation as a one-on-one experience with a nephrologist who is also one of our intensivists, in order to meet our residents’ and our patients’ needs. The experience includes both inpatient and outpatient consults and individual didactics with the nephrologist covering all of the common conditions and workups for kidney disease.

Clinic – 1 month

See description above. The third year is a perfect time to do a clinic month in order to experience daily life as a practicing physician

Ambulatory Pediatrics – 1 month

While our clinic has a large pediatric and adolescent population, we include an ambulatory pediatric experience with community pediatricians treating a wide variety of acute and chronic pediatric conditions including TB, HIV, autism and ADHD.