At St. Luke’s/Roosevelt Hospital Center, the Department of Medicine is not afraid of change – as a matter of fact, we embrace it.  Here are just a few ways that the training program has evolved in the last few years (or days) to improve patient care and/or improve housestaff education.

1) Patient Diversity

• Absolutely the most diverse patient population anywhere – patients of every ethnicity, from every country, of every socioeconomic status

2) A Focus on Didactics

• Innovative and educational noon conferences, morning reports, and specialty conferences (Autopsy Conference, Ethics Seminar, Evidence-based medicine conference)

3) Amazing Research Opportunities

• Faculty in all divisions welcome housestaff involvement to develop research skills and contribute to scholarly work (e.g. abstracts, publications, presentations)

4) NO 24 hour call – anywhere!

• This was not done to make life “easier” but because we believe in patient safety and YOUR safety (many medical errors and most needle stick injuries occur after 24 hour call!)
• Even the ICU has nightfloat!

5) “Drip” admission plan

• The old admission strategy of taking call every 4th day worked WHEN YOU SPENT THE NIGHT IN THE HOSPITAL. Since we do not do that anymore, it makes much more sense to “even” out the workload so that you are not admitting up to 7 patients in one night
• All interns admit 2 patients + 1 transfer EVERYDAY at predictable times
• This allows you to plan and have more time for teaching and READING about your patients!

6) Upload of noon conference presentations to SLRWiki

• Catch up on noon conference in case you missed it

7) The Development of a Non Teaching Service

• To decompress the housestaff census and let residents focus on teaching cases

8) Innovative approaches to quality improvement and quality education

• St. Luke’s-Roosevelt is the site where the Near Miss Registry was created. The Near Miss Registry is an anonymous, risk-free reporting tool used by the NYS Department of Health to disclose vulnerabilities in our hospitals that make care unsafe

9) Cultural Competence Curriculum

• Our award winning curriculum has become a model from which all of New York State benefits

10) Chronic Care Model of Patient Care

• The latest trend in quality patient care. St. Luke’s-Roosevelt is a member of the national Chronic Care Collaborative

11) Annual Retreats, Job and Fellowship Workshops

• We try to anticipate every need in the time frame you need it

12) Access to web based resources throughout the hospital

• OVID, Up-to-Date, the entire Columbia University online library including textbooks and journals in full text