Resident Involvement

There is a lot of opportunity for residents to be a creative engine for growth by contributing and leaving a mark on this program. For example, residents take the lead in running our Wellness and Medical School Outreach programs.

• The Wellness Committee plans monthly events to promote refreshment, reflection, and wellness.  You can find examples of the activities they’ve sponsored at [insert link to wellness page].
• The UCR Medical School Outreach Committee involves residents from every cohort and works closely with the Internal Medicine Interest Group and the internal medicine clerkship directors to provide important education and mentorship opportunities for UCR medical students. They assist in simulations, panels, and case/vignette discussions.

Our committees also continue to grow. Each committee will focus on growing, developing, or changing something within the residency.

Our residents also serve on hospital committees at the St. Bernardine Medical Center. The hospital invites the residents to join any committee in which they are interested. Available committees include 

• Critical care
• Cancer committee
• Ethics committee
• Quality improvement
• Antibiotic stewardship
• Tissue committee
• Utilization management
• Medication safety
• Pharmacy and therapeutics
• Infection control
• Radiation safety

In addition, residents can start and lead initiatives of their own.  Examples of resident founded efforts are our Women in Medicine interest group and our addiction medicine rotation.

Lunch with Program Director

We host a monthly “Lunch with Program Director” session during which the residents can share with me their thoughts and concerns.  Many important changes have emerged from these sessions; including:

• Decreasing ED shift duration from 12 to 10 hours.
• Increasing the interval between the last morning and first afternoon appointments at the UCR Health Downtown Riverside primary care clinics to two hours, providing ample opportunity for residents to attend noon conference and to enjoy a lunch break.
• Changing the call system at St Bernardine Medical Center so that residents can exchange long call days with colleagues, allowing them to take their daily week off when needed.
• Changing the jeopardy system so that coverage duties are rotated evenly amongst members of the jeopardy team each week. This ensures that jeopardy residents don’t miss too much of their scheduled clinical rotation and don’t experience burnout.

For residents that want to share thoughts anonymously, they may do so via an anonymous feedback link. These submissions and the program’s plans to address those concerns are always shared with all the residents.