Internal Medicine Residency Program

Preliminary Medicine (one year program)

St. Mary’s offers 8 positions in Preliminary Medicine

This program offers classical teaching in the principles and practices of internal medicine to residents who wish to prepare for definitive training in non-medicine disciplines, such as dermatology, radiology, pathology, anesthesiology, neurology, ophthalmology and physical medicine / rehabilitation. Training after one year provides full credit toward licensure.

St. Mary’s has enjoyed a long tradition of training preliminary residents before they enter their future specialty in prestigious institutions such as Mass General Hospital, UCSF, Stanford University and others. Many of our preliminary interns learned about our program by word of mouth from prior graduates.

Please note that we do not routinely offer dual positions in both categorical and preliminary medicine.

Preliminary Medicine: Yearly Schedule

7 - 8 months of direct inpatient care consisting of:

6 - 7 months of general medicine wards
1 - 2 months of critical care
1 month emergency medicine at San Francisco General Hospital* (*All categorical, 4 preliminary interns)
2 months electives, one of which may be used for research
1 - 2 months night float

Daily ward schedule on Non-Call and Call days:
7:00 - 8:00 AM	Interns pre-round on all patients after receiving sign-out from night float intern
8:00-8:55 AM	Work Rounds with supervising resident Call day: (8AM - 8PM); On-call team rounds with night float resident and accepts overnight admissions
9:00-10:00 AM	Monday: Combined Resident/Intern ICU Report Wednesday-Friday: Supervising Resident attends Resident Report Interns continue to round on patients and discuss cases with rounding hospitalists and admitting primary care physicians Thursday: Interns attend Intern Report Supervising Residents continue to round on patients and discuss cases with consultants and primary care physicians
10:00-10:45 AM	Patient care: Review of studies, consultation reports, dictation of discharge summaries, discussion of patients with students
10:45-Noon	Mon-Wed-Thur-Fri: Teaching Rounds with Ward Teaching Attending
Noon -1:00 PM	Didactic Conference
1:00-5:00 PM	Continuity Clinic once a week Supervising Resident holds pager and covers wards; In-Patient care on non-clinic days
4:00-5:00 PM	Sign-out rounds with supervising Resident

Q: Will you betreated differently than categorical interns?

A: No! The program is identical to an internship in categorical medicine except that not all preliminary residents will rotate through the ED at San Francisco General Hospital.

In May, we celebrate our PGY-1's completion of their internship with a special Interns Appreciation Day. This is their day and excursions in the past have included picnics, a trip to the wine country, etc. Every year is different!