Crozer's Osteopathic Internal Medicine Residency is a three-year program that accepts eight residents per training year into our dually accredited AOA/ACGME program. This allows osteopathic applicants to fulfill both the licensing requirements for an osteopathic physician in the State of Pennsylvania and be eligible to sit for the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and the American Board of Osteopathic Internal Medicine (ABOIM) examination in three years. The program's curriculum combines strong clinical and didactic components, offering residents a well-rounded training experience. In addition to requisite blocks and electives, our program includes educational opportunities and scholarly activities that emphasize evidence-based medicine, ethics, professionalism, communication skills, and systems-based practice.

Inpatient Experience
Internal Medicine residents care for inpatients at Crozer-Chester Medical Center. Required inpatient rotations are a mix of general internal and subspecialty medicine. Two of our five floor services are general IM, one of which is a hospitalist experience. Our residents rotate on three multispecialty services that offer diverse pathology with teaching by subspecialists.

The resident will become proficient in the care of the critically ill over the course of three years. Neurology, Psychiatry, Gastroenterology, Endocrinology, Hematology/Oncology and Infectious Disease are also required inpatient rotations in our program.

Ambulatory Experience
Ambulatory care - which includes Continuity Care, Neurology, Pulmonary, Primary-care Blocks, Geriatrics, Home Care, Palliative Care, Gastroenterology, Emergency Medicine and Rheumatology and Surgery - comprises a minimum of a third of the total residency experience. The percentage of time in the ambulatory setting can be increased to 50 percent with the addition of ambulatory electives for those residents interested in careers in primary care.

The cornerstone of our ambulatory curriculum is the continuity practice at Crozer Medical Associates. This is an integrated faculty-resident practice where each resident acquires a regular panel of patients over the course of three years. Full-time supervision is present in all sessions.

The preceptor oversees each resident and patient encounter to a degree commensurate with the resident's level of training and expertise. The patient population is diverse economically and culturally and includes all ages from adolescents to seniors.

Crozer Medical Associates (CMA) is located in the Ridley Professional Building in Crum Lynne, PA., which is a five-minute drive from Crozer-Chester Medical Center. CMA's state-of-the-art facilities include procedure rooms, a clinical laboratory with PFTs, teaching microscopes, and a networked system of electronic medical records. A resident will spend one half-day a week in the first year and two half-days a week in the second and third years at CMA.

Multiple four-week blocks round out the ambulatory experience. In each year, a four-week block is devoted to areas such as back pain, dermatology, gynecology, allergy, ENT, family medicine, pulmonary, surgery, neurology and orthopedics among others. Additionally, in the second year, a resident will spend a block in a busy practitioner's office during which time he/she will refine skills needed to manage acute office problems. During this block, time is also devoted to developing the resident's own teaching skills.

Additional Programmatic Highlights
In addition to our various clinical opportunities, our residents have access to sophisticated information technology tools which both improve patient care and enhance education. Patients' records and test results are easily available using our electronic medical record (EMR) system. Medical databases such as Medline, Ovid and UpToDate, as well other electronic aids are easily accessed from multiple sites within the hospital, the office, and from home, which facilitate learning.

Other highlights of our program include service and admission caps, and night floats throughout all three years of the program, ensuring adequate rest, access to a full-time phlebotomy service and EKG technician support. Residents have 24-hour access to our library, which has state-of-the-art search capability in addition to a comprehensive collection of journals. Overall, our program offers residents comprehensive training as well as a solid basis in all aspects of internal medicine care.

The program has abundant opportunities for scholarly activity, much of which results in national and regional presentations and publications.