Welcome Letter from Medicine Program Director
Dear Anesthesiology applicant:
I would like to convey to you several advantages of matching into Northwestern’s Anesthesiology Categorical Track. If you match into the categorical program, the first year of your training would include 9, 4-week medicine rotations with an emphasis on intensive care, one rotation in surgical critical care and two 4 week rotations in the Department of Anesthesiology. You would essentially be two months ahead in your anesthesiology training before joining your other CA-1 colleagues in July.
Advantages of preliminary medicine training at Northwestern and selected facts about the program:
1. A preliminary year at Northwestern gives you the opportunity to get to know the hospital where you will be working over the next four years.
2. Interns participate in an academically focused program with reasonable patient loads and excellent
conferences/academics. Limits on the number of patients per intern, per call and per team are strictly enforced.
3. All inpatient services are in a ward-type arrangement with one teaching attending.
4. Medicine residents are always present to provide interns with educational and clinical support.
5. Intensive Care Unit and Cardiology months provide outstanding clinical material and excellent preparation for anesthesiology training. We have one of the busiest ICU’s in the country and our pulmonary faculty receive a great deal of recognition for teaching.
6. The benefits of a rigorous internship will last a long time. We have had excellent feedback from program directors at Northwestern and other anesthesia programs in regards to the preparation of residents from our program. Our graduates are often seen as “ahead of the curve” as compared to others.
7. Overnight call is present for 4 or 5 months each year. Interns are on call every 4th night in the units and leave at 1:00 pm the next day. Interns are on day call on the medicine floors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital every 5th day. Interns do not take overnight call; night float takes over at 7:00pm. There is no overnight call on subspecialty inpatient services such as cardiology and hepatology. At the VA, teams are on overnight call approximately every 5th night. There is also an every six overnight call schedule on hematology-oncology.
8. Elective months [such as cardiology and pulmonary consultation] have no call.
9. Interns receive excellent didactics, including weekly visiting professors at Grand Rounds, which enables housestaff to interact with many leaders in academic medicine.
10. Interns have one or two months of ward medicine at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital; the focus here is on physical exam skills and diagnostic reasoning.
11. Northwestern has diverse clinical faculty who provide great teaching on the floors.
12. There is an excellent rapport between housestaff and faculty in the Department of Medicine.
13. NMH has great ancillary services e.g., Radiology.
14. Chicago is a great city with limitless possibilities for extracurricular entertainment.
15. The 50 medicine and anesthesiology interns are a very friendly group and the anesthesia residents are definitely part of the family. The Department of Medicine sponsors regular social activities.
We truly enjoy the presence of the Department of Anesthesiology interns in Medicine. They work hard but get a lot out of it. Our graduates say that a foundation gained in Northwestern internal medicine will help you enormously in anesthesia! Please see our website at www.medicine.northwestern.edu for more details about our programs.
Sincerely,
Diane B.Wayne, MD
Residency Program Director
Vice-Chair, Education
Department of Medicine
