The J. Edwin Wood Practice is the primary care outpatient continuity practice for the Internal Medicine Residents. It is located an easy walking distance from Pennsylvania Hospital. Our residents care for patients in our community with multiple chronic conditions and complex social needs. Working as primary care physicians in their clinics, residents address chronic and acute medical issues, health maintenance topics, and social determinants of health. Residents manage a clinical team, including a social worker, clinical pharmacists, a lab, and support staff. The clinic also performs outpatient procedures such as Pap smears, wet mounts, joint injection and incision and drainages.

Outside of the Wood Practice, each resident has dedicated time from the Y schedule to explore our outpatient subspecialty clinics. Interns rotate through outpatient subspecialties such as Rheumatology, Endocrinology, Pulmonology, and Gastroenterology. Residents will be able to explore deeper topics in primary care, such as gynecology or sports medicine, or residents may develop a longitudinal relationship with an outpatient subspecialist in their fellowship of choice.

Residents acquire in-depth clinical training during the inpatient Hospitalist rotation, and our hospital’s broad case-mix provides the grounding for a well-rounded educational experience. Each team is led by a Hospitalist attending who provides high quality, daily academic teaching rounds. The Hospitalist oversees a resident, 2 interns and medical students from the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, the Royal College of Surgeons (Dublin, Ireland) and University College Dublin School of Medicine (Dublin, Ireland). Each team utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to patient care involving pharmacists, nurses, social workers, and case managers.

Our house-officers provide consultative services in Infectious Disease, Nephrology, and General Medicine. These consultative services allow our residents to change their perspective for complex cases and see management through a specialist’s eye. Additionally, particularly with the medicine consult service, our residents have the opportunity to co-manage patients on surgical and psychiatric services, again broadening our perspective on care within the hospital.

Residents rotate through the inpatient Cardiology Service learning in-depth management of patients with primary cardiovascular diseases. Patients on this service have conditions ranging from heart failure, to arrhythmias, or acute coronary syndromes. The service is staffed by a Cardiology attending who supervises a team of 1 resident and 2 interns; the attending runs daily teaching rounds, and hosts didactic sessions outside of rounds. Our Cardiovascular service may manage patients in the Cardiovascular Critical Care Unit, and those on the rotation may also have the opportunity to join procedures in the cardiac catheterization laboratory.

Residents rotate through the inpatient Hematology and Oncology service where they have the opportunity to treat a variety of hematologic and oncologic problems, including the evaluation of patients with cytopenias, coagulation disorders, and hematological/oncological malignancies. Our inpatient Oncology services offer advanced treatment option such CAR-T and Bone Marrow Transplant. The service is staffed by an Oncology attending who supervises a team of 1 resident and 2 interns; the attending runs daily teaching rounds, and hosts didactic sessions outside of rounds. Lastly, Pennsylvania Hospital is also home to the Center for Transfusion-Free Medicine, and our inpatient Hematology service will often treat who do not accept blood products and require specialized care to support an acute anemia.

Consistently rated as one of the best rotations in the program, our MICU rotation includes a broad range of critical care exposure, and allows residents the autonomy to grow their clinical judgement. In addition to advanced problem-solving, residents also learn and execute many bedside procedures, including central line and arterial line placements, dialysis catheter placement, thoracenteses and paracenteses.

Approximately 80% of patients on the medical service are admitted through the Emergency Department, which highlights the need for our medical house-staff to understand the basics of Emergency Medicine. While on the Emergency Department rotation, residents gain a foundation in first-pass clinical decision making, rapidly-evolving care, procedures, and bedside ultrasound.

Third year residents complete dedicated inpatient geriatrics training in the Acute Care for Elderly (ACE) Unit at Penn-Presbyterian Medical Center. During this rotation, residents are exposed to a variety of unique medical and social issues commonly affecting our aging population. This rotation also provides our residents a unique opportunity to collaborate with residents from other internal medicine and family medicine programs within our health system.

Third year residents rotate on our hospital’s Neurology service where they are exposed to the management of primary neurologic conditions and participate in stroke alerts in the Emergency Room. During this time, our residents also visit the movement disorders outpatient clinic.