Medicine Medical Student Education
A high level of excellence learning community
Training Future Physicians in General Medicine
The Division of General Medicine and Primary Care enjoys the opportunity to teach students, bringing to our learning community a high level of excellence expressed in a rich diversity of accomplishments, talents, interests, and backgrounds.
Medical school students are eager to work with our faculty, who are well known for emphasizing clinical decision making, the patient-doctor relationship, the social context of health care, communication skills and professionalism in their teaching encounters.
Practice of Medicine (POM)
Practice of Medicine (POM) is the new yearlong state-of-the-art clinical skills course for entering Harvard Medical students. It is integrated closely with concurrent basic science courses and has four main components.
Four Components of POM
- A mentored, longitudinal primary care experience
- A robust interviewing and communication skills curriculum
- A physical diagnosis curriculum with multiple bedside and outpatient encounters with real patients
- Monthly sessions that foster reflection and professional development.
Training & Teaching Opportunities
Medical students have the opportunity to learn and develop their skills in several hands-on, highly rated programs.
Approximately one-third of Harvard Medical Students complete their third-year Medicine Clerkship.
This twelve-week clerkship at BIDMC includes eight weeks on inpatient services and four weeks in ambulatory settings. Students gain hands-on experience in patient evaluation and management, working with medical teams and preceptors. The program emphasizes skills in history-taking, physical exams, and diagnostic planning, alongside comprehensive patient care. Teaching methods include bedside sessions, lectures, and conferences. Continuous feedback is provided by residents, attending physicians, and clerkship directors, with evaluations based on clinical skills and interactions.
The design of this program provides fourth-year medical students additional experience in the evaluation and management of patients on the general medical service. Students are fully incorporated into the Firm system where they act as subinterns under the close guidance and supervision of an experienced medical resident and teaching faculty of the Firm.
Other examples of the Division's well-known commitment to undergraduate medical education curricula and programs includes the involvement of Division faculty in the HMS "Preventive Medicine and Nutrition" course, the gastroenterology pathophysiology course, and the clinical epidemiology course for first year students.
The Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine continues to actively contribute to the educational mission of the BIDMC and Harvard Medical School (HMS). All members of the Division participate in HMS lectures, precept medical students and lead small group discussions. In addition, select members of the Division provide leadership roles in organizing and instructing HMS courses such as Integrated Human Physiology (Richard Schwartzstein, MD), Human Systems: Respiratory Pathophysiology (David Roberts, M.D.), and Patient-Doctor II (Ronald Silvestri, MD).
Division members are all actively engaged in and dedicated to the training of the next generation of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep physicians. Division members have also been recognized for excellence in teaching within the Harvard Fellowship with awards including Teacher of the Year (Dr. Roberts 2005).
Three postdoctoral training opportunities are available through the Division, including:
- Combined HMS Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship
- Interventional Pulmonary Fellowship
- Sleep Medicine Fellowship
The Subintern-Resident Service (SIRS) is a highly-rated month long inpatient experience that prepares students for internship. The SIRS service is designed to allow students to learn to evaluate and manage patients with complicated medical problems under the supervision of house staff and medical attending staff. Students are expected to function in a more independent manner than in Core Medicine I and to assume more direct responsibility for patient care.
The rotation consists of three teams of one resident and one to two medical students, geographically based on one of our floors. Each team admits to their geographic pod during the day until 4 pm, at which time Twilight starts admitting for the general medicine ward services. The sub-interns truly feel like interns as they perform initial assessments, write all orders, respond to all pages, and prepare all discharge paperwork. The residents supervise closely while teaching the students basic concepts important to inpatient care. The rotation includes dedicated teaching conferences through the weeks, regular attending rounds, and geographic distribution of the patients. Sub-interns spend 2-3 weeks working with the day team and 1-2 weeks on Twilight.
The Resident-Attending Service (RAS) is a dedicated one resident to one attending service, caring for general medical patients located off the geographic floors for the FIRM and SIRS teams. This rotation is a unique experience, affording the resident an opportunity to function autonomously and work directly with a supervising attending.
- Co-Director: Vilas Patwardhan, MD
- Co-Director: Marissa Jupiter, MD
Faculty in the division are currently involved in all aspects of the curriculum at Harvard Medical School, including:
Patient/Doctor I
The introductory course that teaches first-year students to consider topics relating to patients' experiences of illness; to learn the fundamentals of basic communication skills; to discuss social, ethical, and psychological aspects of the doctor-patient relationship; and to develop an ongoing mentoring relationship with a preceptor-clinician.
Patient/Doctor II
A required introduction to clinical medicine course that teaches second-year students physical examination skills, builds competence in interviewing skills, and prepares students for their clerkships.
Meet the Faculty
Advancing Care, Research & Education
Department of Medicine
The Department of Medicine at BIDMC is a recognized leader in patient care, medical education and biomedical research.
Research
The Department of Medicine is engaged in leading-edge research to help better understand and treat a variety of health conditions.
Services
BIDMC's Department of Medicine provides a wide range of patient care services, from routine primary care through advanced specialty care.
