Internal Medicine Residency

Frequently Asked Questions

These are frequently asked questions about our training program. If you have other questions, please contact us at 410-328-2388, option #1. Thank you for your interest.

Susan D. Wolfsthal, M.D

Susan D. Wolfsthal, M.D.
Residency Program Director

What do your residents do after completing residency training?
How successful are your residents in securing a fellowship position?
Do you have a mentoring program to help residents achieve their goals?
How do I apply to your residency program?
What is the diversity of your residents?
What is your RRC accreditation status?
Do you conform to all the RRC regulations regarding admissions, duty hours and working environment? Do you have all the curricular elements required by the RRC?
Do you have a night and day float system?
What kind of call system do you have?
What recent changes have you made in the curriculum?
What else is new in the program?
How will I hear about whether I have been granted an interview?
How can I find out about the status of my application?
When is the best time to interview at the University of Maryland?
What if I want to come back for a second look?
How many residents do you plan to recruit?
How many residents do you have in each track and year of training?
How many chief residents do you have and what are their responsibilities?
How many electives and call-free months do I get as a first year resident? How about vacation time?
I am an applicant for the preliminary program in internal medicine. What are the differences between a preliminary and categorical internship?
Do you give special consideration for those in the couples match or who a special connection to Baltimore?
What recreational facilities are nearby for residents?
What physical changes have you made?
What library facilities are available for the residents?
What benefits do residents receive and what is the current salary?

What do your residents do after completing residency training?

In the past 5 years, we graduated 160 residents in our categorical, Med-Peds and EMIM tracks. Of these residents, 65% are doing fellowships, 22% have chosen careers in primary care, and 13% have secured positions as hospitalists. These numbers are fairly consistent since 2002. Of those entering primary care or hospitalist medicine many stay in the Baltimore area, with many hospitalists staying at the University of Maryland Some return home and set up a practice in other parts of the country, such as Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania - to name a few.

How successful are your residents in securing fellowship positions?

Our residents have been VERY successful in their pursuit of subspecialty training, securing positions at some of the best fellowship programs in the country. Here are the fellowship matches for the last 6 graduating classes, including those in the 2011 Match. The next Match will take place in December 2012.

Allergy-Immunology (1): Stanford (1)
Cardiology (28): Maryland (11), Washington Hospital Center, DC (3), Washington University, St. Louis (2), Pittsburgh (3), VCU (2), Vanderbilt (1), University of North Carolina (1), UT-Southwestern (1), Jefferson (1), Temple (1), University of Miami (1), MUSC (1), University of Buffalo (1), UT-San Antonio (1), Lankenau Hospital (1)
Critical Care (6): Maryland (3), NIH (2), Stanford (1)
Endocrinology (15): Maryland (8), Hopkins (2), NIH (1), Tufts (1), University of Chicago (1), University of North Carolina (1), Yale (1)
Gastroenterology (14): Maryland (4), Maryland/NIH (3), Boston University (1), MUSC (1), Penn State (1), Jefferson (1), Einstein, Philadelphia (1), Jefferson (1), Cooper University Hospital (1)
General Internal Medicine (2): Hopkins (2)
Hematology-Oncology (18): NIH/NCI (4), Maryland (3), Ohio State (2), Columbia (1), Duke (1), University of Washington (1), NYU (1), Loyola, Chicago (1), MOffit Cancer Center (1), Northwestern (1), UT-Southwestern (1), SUNY-Stonybrook (1), University of Utah (1)
Infectious Diseases (21): Maryland (6), George Washington (2), Beth Israel-Deaconess (1), Cornell (1), Hopkins (1), VCU (1), Mount Sinai, NYC (1), NIH (1), Penn State (1), Rush, Chicago (1), University of Minnesota (1), University of North Carolina (1), Washington University, St. Louis (1), Washington Hospital Center, DC (1)
Nephrology (4): Maryland (3), Tufts (1)
Pulmonary-Critical Care (14): Maryland (5), Pittsburgh (2), Washington Hospital Center, DC (2), Hopkins (1), NIH (1), UC-San Diego (1), UCLA (1), Oregon Health Sciences University (1)
Rheumatology (7): Duke (2), Hopkins (2), Maryland (2), University of Kansas (1)

Do you have a mentoring program to help residents achieve their goals?

Our mentoring program is comprehensive and very successful. During July or August, interns meet with one of the directors to review their career goals and interests. They are then paired with one or more faculty members with similar interests and who take a strong interest in our residents' well-being. The director checks in frequently with the faculty-resident pair to ensure that the resident's needs are being met. The mentoring program has been very successful. Residents entering fellowships are able to start a research project early in their training, present at our Maryland ACP meeting, and develop a robust CV to ensure a successful fellowship match. Residents interested in hospital medicine are paired with one or more of academic hospitalists. These residents can become involved in various ongoing projects in quality improvement and safety, or strengthen their skills in inpatient practice. Lastly, residents who are destined for a career in primary care are paired with one of our academic generalists with whom they develop the appropriate electives and curriculum to meet their needs. We have many, many connections with practices in the community, which is invaluable in helping our residents secure a primary care position at the end of their training. All residents are strongly encouraged to present their research or a clinical vignette at our annual Maryland ACP meeting -- a highlight of the spring. Our residents present over 30 research abstracts and clinical vignettes at the annual meeting. The Department of Medicine provides $750 in support for residents who present their work at national meetings.

How do I apply to your residency program?

Full details on how to apply to our various programs are available on the Application Process page. We accept only ERAS applications for the categorical, preliminary, Med-Peds and EMIM training programs.

What is the diversity of your residents and where did they go for medical school?

We are very proud that our residents come from a variety of backgrounds and schools. The current first year class represents numerous medical schools from the mid-Atlantic, northeast, southeast, southwest and mid-west. Occasionally, we have residents from the Pacific Northwest and California as well. Approximately 25-30% of each class has graduates from the University of Maryland School of Medicine with 55% percent women. Ten percent of our residents are African-American, 30% are Asian-Pacific Islander and 5% are Hispanic.

What is your RRC accreditation status?

We have an 11-year full accreditation from the RRC - their highest rating! In addition, all of our 12 subspecialty fellowships are fully accredited by the RRC with the longest accreditation cycles available -- a measure of their excellence.

Do you conform to all the RRC regulations regarding admissions, duty hours and working environment? Do you have all the curricular elements required by the RRC?

By being fully accredited, we confirm and abide by all RRC regulations for curricular content and duty hours, including the new rules that went into effect in July 2011. We enforce a strict 5 admission cap for first year residents, have a night and day float system, ensure adequate sleep and rest while on call, among many others. We have implemented an extensive night team and cross coverage system to ensure that all residents work less than 80 hours/week on average over the month, have 4 full days off each month, and have 8-10 hours off between duty shifts. We reduced our shifts to 28 hours (24+4) in 2009 -- a full 18 months ahead of the ACGME's new changes for July 2011. Interns are limited to 16 hours of clinical duty and do not have overnight call. A full night float team and day floats ensure that we are fully compliant. Interns take their last admission on the floor teams at 6 PM and in the ICU's at 7 PM, thus allowing the interns ample to time to finish their work and leave on time. We have numerous opportunities for moonlighting which also helps the teams meet their clinical responsibilities. We track work hours monthly to ensure we are 100% compliant. In addition, we ensure that all teams do not exceed their caps for individual and team patient census. Our Written Curriculum is competency-based, comprehensive and encompasses all elements required by the RRC. In addition, we have added several curricular items targeted at areas that we feel are important, such as women's health, palliative medicine, ethics and evidence based medicine.

Do you have a night and day float system?

We have the both night and day floats at University Hospital and the VA. The night float team comes on duty at 9 pm 7 nights per week, takes all admissions and does all cross coverage for the medical teams. Interns on-call take their last admission at 6 pm and can leave the hospital around 9-10 pm. Thus, interns and residents on floor teams do not have overnight call. The Night Team presents their admissions to the team attending the following morning - thus ensuring continuity of care, accountability and educational value for their work. Both the University and VA Night Night teams are wonderful components of the residency program allowing our residents to be more rested, stay under the 80-hour workweek cap and attend more conferences. The day float resident starts their responsibilities at 12 PM and stays through 11 PM, assisting the post-call team, long-call team and ICU's as needed. Again, the institutional support has been outstanding across the board.

What kind of call system do you have?

Call is every 4th night on all services and in all hospitals, except for the MICU and CCU at UMMC where interns are on-call until 9 PM every 4-6 days. We have team call on all general medicine services at UMMC and the VA. These teams are covered by a University or VA Night Team so that residents may leave at 9-10 PM on their days on call. On the ICU's at University and the VA and in the Cancer Center, residents take individual over-night call and leave within 28 hours. At Mercy Medical Center, the residents take individual call and are relieved of duties at 9 PM by the Mercy Night Team.

What recent changes have you made in the curriculum?

Several exciting curricular items were implemented in the last few years -- including an evidence based medicine curriculum during Journal Club, a competency-based core curriculum in internal medicine, a weekly board review course and a pre-clinic ambulatory core conference. In September 2012, we reconfigured our CCU/telemetry service (PCS - Primary Cardiology Service) at UMMC to focus the residents' clinical experience in cardiology, including ischemia heart disease, MI's and arrhythmias. We also established a new Advanced Heart Failure Service in September 2012. Second year residents rotate on this service for 2 weeks and work alongside fellows and nurse practitioners in the care of these complex patients with CHF, pulmonary hypertension, and transplant needs. This structure has greatly improved continuity of patient care and enhanced resident efficiency. The Night Teams and Day Floats at University and the VA have greatly benefited the residency program. We have also implemented several distance learning modules, which are web-based tutorials in key topics in internal medicine. The current modules are in Palliative Medicine and End-of-Life Care, modules in insertion of central venous catheters, and modules in brief interventions in substance abuse. Residents work through these modules at their own pace, reading the material and answering questions. Our MICU is a 29-bed state-of-the-art MICU which opened in May 2006. Finally, in July 2012 we implemented a novel curriculum in Patient Safety and Quality Improvement under the direction of our hospitalists and new chief resident dedicated to this area. This curriculum is integrated in many conferences, including M&M, and in numerous clinical activities, such as practice based learning exercises.

What else is new in the program?

We implemented an enhanced academic advisory and research system to allow residents to develop their research skills and secure the best fellowship positions. We hold a monthly Resident Research Forum where residents present their ongoing research and upcoming abstracts. Faculty mentors join in the discussion, making this an incredibly well-received conference. All of our conferences are listed on our Blackboard site. Enter the username and password = imres to check out our calendar. We also post all of our slides and handouts, including resident manuscripts for the Senior Talks and the Journal Club CATs at this site. We also keep a compendium of landmark articles for our residents on Blackboard. Because of copyright issues, visitors cannot access these articles at this site. Overall, Blackboard is an impressive collection of valuable information. Lastly, we have a web-based evaluation system where residents have immediate access to their evaluations, log their procedures and evaluate the faculty and their rotations.

How will I hear about whether I have been granted an interview?

You will receive all preliminary correspondence from our program via email - So check your email frequently. Once your ERAS application and supporting documents have been reviewed by the Program Director, you will either be granted an interview or your application will be placed on hold for a second review in 2-3 weeks. Once you have been granted an interview, you will receive an invitation via email with instructions to select an interview date. After you let us know your preferred interview dates by telephone, we will confirm your interview date. Information regarding the day's activities, hotel accommodations, directions and other items will be provided once your interview is confirmed or can be viewed at Interview, Travel and Hotel Information.

How can I find out about the status of my application?

Please call us at 410-328-2388, options #1, for any information about your application.

When is the best time to interview at the University of Maryland?

Any time is a good time for an interview. Applicants are given the same consideration for ranking whether they interview early or late in the recruitment season.

What if I want to come back for a second look?

All applicants are encouraged to visit us again, particularly if their first visit was early in the interview season. Try to come on a day when we are not interviewing. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are good choices. Contact us at us at 410-328-2388 option #1, to set up a second visit appointment.

How many residents do you plan to recruit?

We are recruiting a similar number of residents as we have done in the past, including 30 categorical internal medicine, 4 Med-Peds, 2 EMIM, and approximately 15 preliminary internal medicine interns.

How many residents do you have in each track and year of training?

For 2012-2013, we have 147 residents in the Department of Medicine plus 5 full-time chief residents who have already completed their residency training - 2 University/VA chiefs, a primary care chief resident, a chief resident specializing in patient safety and quality improvement, and a chief resident at Mercy Medical Center. We also have a chief resident in their final year of training in Med-Peds and EMIM. There are 89 categorical, 16 Med-Peds, and 10 EMIM residents, plus 32 preliminary interns (15 at University, 17 at Mercy Medical Center). Since 26 residents are in combined training programs, the total FTE (full time equivalents) of residents in training is 134 residents. The following chart shows the number of residents in each year of the training program by track. In addition, we have 6 preliminary interns who are part of the anesthesiology program at the University of Maryland.

Track	PGY-1	PGY-2	PGY-3	PGY-4	PGY-5	Total
Categorical Medicine	30	29	30	-	-	89
Med-Peds	4	4	4	4		16
EMIM	2	2	2	2	2	10
Preliminary (University-VA)	15	-	-	-	-	15
Preliminary (Mercy Medical Center)	17	-	-	-	-	17
TOTAL	68	35	36	6	2	147

How many chief residents do you have and what are their responsibilities?

We have 7 chief residents at the University of Maryland. Fiveof the chiefs have completed their training in internal medicine and are board eligible/certified and include 2 University-VA Chief Residents, a Primary Care Resident, a chief resident in Patient Safety and Quality Improvement, and the Mercy Chief Resident. We have 2 chief residents in their final year of training in the Med-Peds and EMIM programs.

The University-VA Chief Residents are responsible for all the educational activities for the residents at the two hospitals, including Morning Report, CPC, M&M, Ethics Seminars and other teaching conferences. They create all the monthly and on-call schedules in accordance with the curricular requirements of the program. They attend on the inpatient units and in the continuity medical clinics. Our chiefs are wonderfully creative and have an enormous amount of enthusiasm for teaching. They have a huge impact on the program, interacting with the residents on a daily basis, and are the primary advocates and support for the residents.
Our Primary Care Chief Resident is responsible for all the outpatient conferences and core curriculum in primary care, coordinates the continuity clinic schedules and works with the Associate Program Director for Ambulatory Education on the curriculum in the Ambulatory Blocks. The Ambulatory Care Chief organizes various procedure workshops (skin biopsy and suturing, arthrocentesis and joint injection) and the practice management seminars (finding and interviewing for a job, understanding your contract, malpractice and managed care). This chief also serves as an attending on the inpatient service, medical consultation service and in the residents' continuity clinics.
The Chief Resident in Patient Safety and Quality Improvement oversees a broad system-wide program to enhance resident skills in this area through both conferences and hands-on learning. Principles are reinforced during Morning Report and our M&M Conferences. Residents apply these skills through practice based learning exercises in their continuity clinics and participation in Rapid Improvement Events and other quality improvement activities.
The Chief Resident at Mercy Medical Center is responsible for the preliminary interns at Mercy and the University residents and students who rotate at that hospital. The chief coordinates Morning Report, Grand Rounds, M&M, core curriculum and Journal Club, is responsible for the yearly call schedule and ensures that the master curriculum is delivered to all residents rotating at Mercy. The chief also attends on the inpatient service and on all medical consultations at Mercy.
The Med-Peds and EMIM Chief Residents are responsible for helping to coordinate the components of the combined curricula, including weekly conferences for Med-Peds, quarterly conferences for EMIM, rotation schedules and support groups for each program. They also arrange social activities for the combined residents. These chief residents are important advocates for the combined programs, ensuring that the Med-Peds and EMIM residents make smooth transitions between the specialties and have their needs met.

How many electives and call-free months do I get as a first year resident? How about vacation time?

All categorical interns have 5 blocks without call, including 2 electives, 1/2 month of ER, 1 month of Episodic Care, and 1-1.5 months of Night Float. Preliminary interns have 4-5 non-call months, including 2 Night Float months, 2 electives, and 1/2 month of VA episodic care.

All upper level residents have 4 weeks of paid vacation per year.

The Night Team is shift work and hence is not considered a call rotation. You have a 2 week block of vacation and another 1 week of vacation that is taken during one of your electives. Since interns start a week early on June 24th each year, they end their internship a week early and get an extra week of vacation at the end of June -- giving interns a total of 4 weeks off between June 24th and June 30th of the following year. The 4th week of vacation at the end of June is only applicable for those residents who are continuing their training at Maryland. All categorical and preliminary interns have 2 months of elective. Med-Peds and Med-EM residents each have one elective during their 6 months of internal medicine internship.

I am an applicant for the preliminary program in internal medicine. What are the differences between a preliminary and categorical internship?

The preliminary intern curriculum is nearly identical to the categorical medicine year. The only differences are that the preliminary residents do 1/2 month in the VA's Urgent Care and do not have an ER block. The 10 inpatient equivalents for preliminary interns consist of approximately 8-9 months of inpatient services (including 2-3 ICU months) plus 1-2 months of Day/Night Float. Preliminary interns have 4-5 non-call months, including 2 Day/Night Float months, 2 electives, and 3 weeks of vacation. Preliminary interns staying at Maryland for their advanced residency training have a 4th week of paid vacation at the end of June. Preliminary interns have 2 months of elective. Preliminary residents do not attend a weekly continuity medical clinic unless they plan to continue in internal medicine.

Do you give special consideration for those in the couples match or who a special connection to Baltimore?

Please let us know in writing that you are in the couples match, even if your significant other is applying to a field outside of medicine. We are very interested in recruiting qualified couples to the University of Maryland and are highly supportive of family life in our program. We are also interested in knowing if you have special ties to the Baltimore area.

What recreational facilities are nearby for residents?

In September 2009, our new Campus Center opened to the University community. Right across the street from the hospital, you will find cafes with healthy food, lounges and conference space. A full service gym with group classes, cardio and weight equipment, and pool is open to our residents for a reasonable monthly fee. This is an amazing addition to our campus! And you can see the swimming pool from the MICU windows!

What physical changes have you made?

The Department has renovated the call rooms, making the facilities very attractive, quiet and safe. We have also renovated our team rooms for several of the services. We have new and very attractive space for our daily conferences. In addition to our Departmental changes, there have been absolutely spectacular physical changes at UMMC, including the new Weinberg Building, with our MICU. The new outpatient center of the Greenebaum Cancer Center provides state-of-the-art care for ambulatory patients. A new non-resident Intermediate Care Unit (IMC) opened in the fall of 2009 and is non-teaching service staffed by hospitalists. A new critical care tower will open during the 2012-2013 academic year and house new emergency room facilities.

What library facilities are available for the residents?

The Health Sciences Library is a modern state-of-the-art facility with over 2300 journals. Through the use of Up-to-Date, Ovid and Medline, residents have access to pertinent literature through enhanced searching capabilities in an evidence based medicine format. Access is available from any computer on campus.

What benefits do residents receive and what is the current salary?

In addition to routine health benefits, residents receive free parking, dinner and breakfast while on call, annual $100 book allowances and a $750 educational stipend in the senior year. If residents' research is accepted for presentation at a national meeting, residents receive $750 to support their trip. For the current salary and additional information, please see Salary and Benefits. We also provide support for residents who have abstracts accepted at national meetings. Lastly, we have an endowment that provides support for residents who choose to do international electives.

This page was last updated on: August 8, 2012.