Educational Conferences
In this section:
Boot Camp
In addition to general orientation, all new residents will participate in an intense week-long, educationally-based orientation fondly referred to as “Boot Camp.” This experience not only reaffirms basic skills and knowledge learned in medical school, but also prepares residents for clinical duties. It provides new residents with the tools necessary to excel as they embark on their new journey at Houston Methodist. Through carefully selected didactic sessions and hands-on experiences, residents are exposed to the essentials of patient care and procedures that they will soon encounter on the hospital wards. For several weeks following Boot Camp, the Core Lecture Series (Emergency Lecture Series) will be held daily during noon conference and will cover other important topics managed frequently by medical residents.
Procedures & Simulation Training
The Houston Methodist Institute of Technology, Innovation & Education (MITIE) is an educational skills laboratory used for training residents in a variety of clinical procedures and scenarios. Our residents are first exposed to simulation during Boot Camp where they spend a half-day practicing skills, including ultrasound-guided line placement, EKG interpretation, pelvic/Pap smears, arthrocentesis, arterial blood gas draw, peripheral blood smears and critical decision-making using a high-tech SimMan. Later in their training, residents return to the MITIE lab intermittently to practice code training in preparation for running the Code Blue Team.
POCUS Curriculum
The goal of our Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) is to teach EVERY resident the basics of POCUS skills relevant to Hospital Medicine. This includes image acquisition, interpretation and the clinical integration. During the 3-year curriculum, every resident will complete two hands-on scanning sessions covering the basics of ultrasound: cardiac, lung, kidney, bladder and vascular. In addition, residents will have to complete pre-course work and quizzes.
Our monthly POCUS Noon Conferences includes the content-based lectures, image review sessions and workshops.
Didactic Conferences
A variety of interactive conferences are held regularly, including Morning Report, Morbidity/Mortality, Business of Medicine/Virtual Practice, Autopsy, Board Review, Medical Jeopardy Game, Quality Improvement/Patient Safety, Journal Club and Evidence-Based Medicine conferences. Many of these conferences use audience response technology to improve the interaction and make learning more enjoyable and efficient. Residents are able to demonstrate and polish presentation skills, gaining the confidence of a leader in their field.
Click here for a sample conference calendar
(BR) Board Review: There are two types of Board Review (BR) conferences. The first, held during the usual Monday-Thursday schedule, is led by a resident who reviews and discusses 10 to 15 MedStudy questions using TurningPoint to facilitate audience participation. The other BR, held every other Friday, is just for upper level residents and uses a “roundtable” format to practice answering questions and generate group discussions with questions provided from MKSAP.
(CT) Core Topics: Each month, our clinical and teaching faculty provide approximately a dozen didactic conferences that cover key medical topics commonly encountered on board exams.
(EBM) Evidence-Based Medicine: These conferences are each led by small groups of three to four residents who, working with a designated faculty member, briefly present a commonly encountered case followed by a discussion of the relevant clinical questions, appropriate literature search, and results from at least two supporting papers.
(HVC) High-Value Care: This conference is held 6 times per year. It is presented by an upper-level resident and facilitated by a faculty member. The purpose is to carefully examine and reflect on cases where opportunities to provide more effective and high-value care exist.
(IR) Intern Report: This conference is held every other Friday and only interns (plus medical students) are present. The purpose of this conference is to give interns an opportunity to present and discuss bread and butter cases in an informal environment with a faculty facilitator. No PowerPoint needed!
(J) Jeopardy: Every other month, Jeopardy competitions heat up the conference room as two teams battle it out in various medical trivia categories. Not only are these sessions lots of fun, but they provide good practice for our Doctor’s Dilemma Competition at the ACP Associate’s Day.
(JC) Journal Club: The monthly Journal Club conferences are run by groups of two to three residents working with a designated faculty member. They select a relevant, statistically sound paper and lead a discussion focused on the study description, question, methods, results and, most importantly, the applicability of the results. PowerPoint slides are used during presentation and the articles are emailed out ahead of time.
(M&M) Morbidity and Mortality: The monthly M&M conference is presented by three residents working with a designated faculty member who discuss a faculty-selected case that provides opportunities to improve patient care. The format and discussion uses the Healthcare Matrix to identify opportunities for Practice-Based Learning and Quality Improvement.
(MGR) Medicine Grand Rounds: The educational objective of the Department of Medicine's Grand Rounds series is to provide a forum for the presentation and active discussion of relevant medical content including but not limited to: updated practice guidelines from prominent national societies, systematic reviews, meta-analysis and important randomized clinical trials and practice recommendations from prominent experts in general internal medicine and the internal medicine subspecialties. The goal is to encourage attendees to incorporate learned content into their clinical practice to improve evidence-based care delivery.
(MR) Morning Report: Every morning (other than Tuesday Medical Grand Rounds) our residents are expected to attend morning report. These sessions are led by our own chief residents. Interns and residents take turns being assigned to present concise patient cases with the emphasis on formulating a differential diagnosis and appropriate evaluation and management for each described case. Residents develop skills in effective communication and learn to present confidently, accurately and with appropriate focus. Each case should recognize areas of knowledge deficit and formulate appropriate clinical questions to be addressed from the medical literature.
(QI) Quality Improvement: The first two conferences will be introductory sessions to review key concepts in quality. Throughout the year, residents will be working together in their clinic teams to complete the ABIM Practice Improvement Modules (PIMs). Later in the year, two to three resident-led conferences will provide an opportunity for teams to present their findings, discuss improvement plans and finally reassess measures to see if improvements actually occurred.
(SL) Senior Lecture: All PGY-3's are required to present a senior talk as part of the scholarly requirement for the program. This talk allows the resident to showcase his or her evidence-based medicine skills and present a comprehensive review and scholarly discussion on a topic of their choice.
(TH) Town Hall: These IM Resident-only Town Hall sessions are scheduled at least once a month with only the Internal Medicine residents in attendance and facilitated by the Chief Residents. These conferences are meant to be open forums where residents can feel comfortable and free to express concerns, providing insight and suggestions without intimidation or fear of retribution.
For Additional Information
Learn more about our regularly scheduled grand rounds.