Areas of Interest
Trainees are able to identify an area of interest in order to customize their experience in our Internal Medicine-Dermatology program. This helps optimize both the educational experience of residents and allows for a seamless transition to an academic career that builds upon this specialized training. Both inpatient and outpatient elective rotations can be chosen to supplement the regular combined training curriculum.
Primary Care
Residents who wish to pursue a career within primary care medical dermatology can focus on the following areas and opportunities:
- Women’s heath: Rotations in the outpatient women’s health medicine clinic, women’s health dermatology clinic and vulvar/mucosal dermatology clinic
- General internal medicine: Additional time in outpatient medicine primary care clinics, as well as further training in quality improvement
- Allergy: Additional inpatient and outpatient experiences
Hospital Medicine
Residents who foresee a career in hospitalist medicine can spend additional time beyond the core inpatient rotations during their medicine and dermatology training. Trainees who are interested can choose inpatient rotations such as palliative care, perioperative medicine and other medical subspecialty inpatient consultative services as a counterpart to additional dermatology inpatient electives. Residents interested in hospital medicine are able to participate in Quality Improvement projects through the AQSI (Academy for Quality and Safety) program during years PGY-3 through PGY-5.
Infectious Disease/Global Health
Residents interested in infectious disease or global health are able to spend extra time rotating through the general infectious disease consult service as well as the infectious disease consult service dedicated to transplant patients (solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients). Additionally, through the Department of Medicine, residents can rotate in either the Centro Medico Humberto Parra clinic in Palacios, Bolivia or the Hillside Health Care clinic in Eldridgeville, Belize. Additional international rotations can also be arranged with approval. These rotations can also be completed in conjunction with the Global Health Certificate program offered from McGaw.
Oncology
In addition to the core inpatient oncology rotations that are part of the standard internal medicine residency training, individuals can choose additional oncology exposure on the inpatient oncology and palliative care consult services, as well as in specialized outpatient clinics. The dermatology core curriculum provides additional oncology exposure through specialty clinics, including melanoma, oncodermatology, and cutaneous lymphoma clinics. In addition, residents can participate in our multi-disciplinary tumor board meetings.
All residents will also spend time on the inpatient dermatology consult service, which provides consultative care for hospitalized cancer and stem cell transplant patients.
Rheumatology
Residents interested in a career with a focus on dermatology-rheumatology can spend additional time on the rheumatology inpatient consult service and outpatient rheumatology clinics to increase their exposure to patients with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma and other autoimmune and connective tissue diseases. During dermatology training, residents rotate through the multidisciplinary psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis clinic. The inpatient dermatology consult experience also provides residents with the opportunity to care for patients with acute complications of connective tissue diseases as well as severe psoriasis and other erythrodermic conditions.