Internal Medicine Residency Columbia - Primary Care Track

Q: Primary care mentorship and practice

Practice models can vary within regions and communities. Each resident will be paired with a primary care clinician mentor for longitudinal development of invaluable primary care practice skill sets.

Q: Business and administration within medicine

Increasing understanding of our healthcare system allows clinicians to assist in optimizing healthcare delivery to their patients. Residents will have the opportunity to learn about insurance and access to care, as well as documentation and billing principles.

Q: Ambulatory ultrasound

With our affiliation with the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Columbia and the Ultrasound Institute, residents will participate in various hands-on, integrated learning opportunities regarding ultrasound in the outpatient setting.

Preparing primary care general internists

The primary care track of the Prisma Health Internal Medicine Residency Program prepares residents for a career as a primary care general internist. We want to develop clinically strong general internists ready to practice in any primary care setting – rural or urban, academic or private.

In addition, our hope is that residents will learn about the delivery of primary care, its role in the larger healthcare system, the economics of primary care practice, and the ways in which primary care delivery is changing. We not only strive to develop good clinicians, but we also want to develop individuals to be leaders in primary care and healthcare delivery.

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Overview

Our internal medicine clinic in Columbia functions as an NCQA-certified Level 3 Patient-Centered Medical Home. We are responsible for providing our patients with easy access and comprehensive, patient-centered care for all their health needs. We pride ourselves in coordinating specialty care as well as home health services.

Over the course of our ambulatory experience, we learn to effectively manage acute care complaints and chronic health conditions with the highest level of quality. We are a multidisciplinary team with in-house social workers, financial counselors, case managers, mental health professionals and pharmacists.

Clinically, residents will receive a diverse experience in ambulatory internal medicine, hospital-based medicine, emergency medicine, geriatrics and intensive care medicine. They will also rotate through several subspecialties and unique primary care electives like women’s health and addiction medicine.

Curriculum

Each academic year, residents spend a greater portion of their training in our outpatient clinic compared to their categorical track colleagues. The majority of time is spent in primary care at the resident clinic, but you will also have the opportunity to spend half-days at the VA primary care clinic and in a variety of IM sub-specialty clinics including heart failure, ENT, dermatology and many others. We utilize a team-based approach to ensure patient continuity and mimic group internal medicine practice. During the elective blocks, residents also have a half-day each week dedicated to their outpatient clinic. This allows residents to provide greater continuity of care, develop meaningful relationships with their patients, and follow the progress of their patients’ treatments.

A dedicated ambulatory curriculum, including both online ambulatory modules and ambulatory focused didactics, is embedded into the ambulatory rotation experience. Topics such as social determinants of health, business of medicine and quality improvement are included. Residents also receive hands-on outpatient procedural training during workshops at the simulation center.

See our full curriculum schedule

Additional experiences and training

The primary care track will provide experiences and training in several areas critical for future primary care physicians including the following:

Team-based care

The comprehensive care required of a patient-centered medical home necessitates primary care be delivered not by one general internist, but by a multidisciplinary team. Residents deliver their ongoing continuity care, including chronic pain management, to patients as part of such a team. They get experience in team-based chronic disease management in our multidisciplinary hypertension, diabetes, and hospital follow-up clinics that we have integrated into our primary care practice.

Primary care mentorship and practice

Quality improvement

Residents will learn about the fundamentals of quality improvement early in their training. All residents participate in quality improvement with support from the faculty and affiliated clinical teams. Additionally, residents will participate along with clinic leadership and staff in the continual ongoing quality improvements efforts within the internal medicine clinic.

Population health

As primary care doctors, we are not just responsible for individuals. We are now being asked to be responsible for the health of our communities. Our clinic and our institution are making greater efforts to use quality improvement and data-driven care to improve the health of our city and the surrounding area. Residents will be exposed to population health via our quality improvement curriculum and through involvement with community-based programs supported by our institution to impact social determinants of health, improve health education, and health behaviors of our patients.

Social determinants of health

While we learn about disease pathophysiology and risk factors as physicians, we recognize that other social components can also significantly impact the health of patients and families. Residents will learn about these social factors via a longitudinal curriculum that not only incorporates didactics, but also includes multidisciplinary events and collaboration with community-based organizations to better understand and assist with management of these social factors.

Business and administration within medicine

Ambulatory ultrasound