Internal Medicine Residency Program
The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, the flagship hospital of Cone Health, is a 628-bed facility that serves the community's primary care and regional tertiary needs. It sponsors the Internal Medicine Program in conjunction with the University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill.
The Internal Medicine Program consists of 22 residents; 6 categorical residents per year and 4 additional preliminary interns. The program provides a community-based, comprehensive curriculum in internal medicine. House staff are taught a broad range of skills in both primary care and subspecialty medicine. Opportunities abound to learn in an environment that features the wide breadth of general medicine and substantial exposure to subspecialty medicine for those interested in pursuing further training.
We are proud of the special opportunities this program provides. We offer a strong ambulatory experience. Residents function as primary care physicians providing continuity of care to an underserved patient population. Our eight core faculty are dedicated clinician-educators who are supported to serve as instructors and mentors to housestaff. Physician wellness and fostering resiliency are highly valued.
Clinical reasoning, evidence-based medicine, and the practical use of medical informatics are emphasized. Our educational conference series include morning report to teach case-based clinical reasoning, noon conference led by core faculty or sub-specialists from the community, journal club with a dedicated curriculum for evidence-based medicine, clinical improvement conference to foster life-long learning, and weekly grand rounds featuring scientific updates with speakers from tertiary academic research centers.
Mentorship is highly valued. Our eight core faculty are accessible to residents and available to serve as career mentors regardless of resident career interest. Faculty are approachable, available and resourceful to assist residents in reaching their goals.
Our Residency Program offers:
- One-on-one teaching by skilled faculty dedicated to the Internal Medicine Program and its residents.
- Comprehensive training in Internal Medicine in a community-based program, allowing housestaff to learn a broad range of skills in both primary care and subspecialty medicine, with full ACGME accreditation.
- A strong ambulatory experience with at 3-4 months per year dedicated to an ambulatory clinic and ambulatory subspecialty electives.
- A Quality Improvement curriculum in which residents are taught principles of quality improvement and participate in resident lead projects.
- Informatics and Panel Management: In our clinic, residents learn about management for their panel of patients and how to interpret healthcare informatics.
- A multidisciplinary curriculum to teach medication assisted treatment of opioid use disorder, which includes didactics and hands-on experience prescribing buprenorphine in both the inpatient and outpatient setting.
- A comprehensive point-of-care ultrasound curriculum, which includes didactics, hands-on workshops with advanced simulators, bedside teaching with direct faculty feedback, and interdisciplinary quality assurance programs.
- A continued focus on physician wellness and mitigation of burnout. We measure burn out with an annual Maslach burnout inventory, which is reviewed by the program evaluation committee and Cone wellness committee. We feature didactics lead by local and national leaders on wellness. We offer our residents wellness days off, which they can use for personal needs.
- The opportunity to acquire the necessary skills to enter a community-based practice, a hospitalist program, a career in academic general internal medicine or a subspecialty fellowship.
- Technology Stipend - Each resident is given a technology stipend as they enter residency.
- Videotape reviews of resident/patient encounters, focusing on interviewing skills.
- Research opportunities in ambulatory medicine, infectious diseases, cardiology, and others.
Internal Medicine Residency Program: FAQs
What are the strengths of your program?
Our program gives an opportunity to learn in an environment that offers comprehensive, individualized learning from skilled University of North Carolina-appointed full-time faculty. Our faculty members devote the time to teach in a collegial, close-knit atmosphere and serve as mentors to our residents. Lifelong learning skills and the clinical use of medical informatics are emphasized. Our program is often described as having a "family-like" atmosphere. Faculty and staff are routinely accessible to residents. Residents are able to work in diverse fields upon graduation and we have had very successful match rates for fellowship. We have an excellent curriculum and are proud of our 94% ABIM board pass rate for the last 3 years and a 96.4% ABIM board pass rate in the last 5 years.
What type of accreditation does your program have?
Our program is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). We received a six-year accreditation, the maximum awarded by the council in 2008. We have received continued accreditation since that time. The ACGME requires that the program and the institution complete extensive documentation, have an on-site review and be evaluated by the Residency Review Committee (RRC) of the ACGME regularly. We are following these requirements.
Does your program participate in ERAS and NRMP for the match?
Yes, only applications submitted through ERAS are accepted. USMLE or COMLEX transcripts are required.
For the 2024 ERAS® cycle, our program will be collecting and reviewing data from applicants’ supplemental ERAS applications. Completion of the standard MyERAS application is a requirement; completion of the supplemental ERAS application is optional.
In its third year of use, the supplemental ERAS application is designed to help applicants share more information about themselves and assist our program in finding applicants that fit our program’s setting and mission. There is no cost to applicants and participation is optional.
The supplemental ERAS application provides:
- geographic preferences (by division and by urban or rural setting);
- information about an applicant’s most meaningful experiences and other impactful life events, if applicable; and
- program signals.
Does your program offer any special learning experiences?
Yes! We have specialized programs including care of the person with opioid use disorder and training in treatment with buprenorphine products. We also have a robust point of care ultrasound curriculum including an in person elective, a sim center and regular didactics. Finally, we have recently added a rotation in clinical informatics. Our program is very interested in the cutting edge of education and enhancing our resident education in many unique ways.
Where do most of your graduates go?
Most of our graduates practice general internal medicine or provide hospitalist care, both in North Carolina and elsewhere. Those seeking fellowship training are successful and have obtained fellowships in cardiology, critical care, rheumatology, addiction medicine, endocrinology, infectious diseases, geriatrics, gastroenterology, hematology/oncology and nephrology.
In recent years, our residents have been accepted into fellowships at:
- Medical College of Georgia
- Georgetown University
- Wake Forest University
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- East Carolina University
- Duke University
How does your program use technology?
We provide a stipend that can be used to support smart phones. Each resident will receive software which allows them to access inpatient medical records wirelessly anywhere in the hospital.
Our system uses EPIC electronic medical records for inpatient and outpatient charting. There are embedded web links to use UpToDate as well as speech to text technology. We have a point of care ultrasound curriculum to teach residents bedside ultrasound that can be utilized in future practice. We also teach the use of aggregate clinic data to measure and improve clinical care.
Where does the resident training take place?
Core rotations and continuity clinics are done at The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro. Subspeciality and other outpatient rotations are available at Moses Cone Hospital and in the Greensboro community. Selected rotations are available in the UNC system and other outside health systems.
How is your quality of life in Greensboro?
Greensboro is a vibrant city of almost 300,000 people. Located in central North Carolina, Greensboro is the third largest city in the state and is within a two-hour drive to the mountains and a three-hour drive to the coast. The city is home to the Greensboro Coliseum, which hosts a wide variety of events ranging from the NCAA basketball tournament to symphony and rock concerts. Greensboro is home to several academic institutions, including The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, North Carolina A&T State University, Guilford College, Bennett College and Greensboro College. Recently, the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts has opened downtown which has hosted Broadway, comedy and music events. Many visitors comment on the large amount of green space in the city due to the bountiful parks and recreational facilities. Greensboro has much to offer to those thinking of relocating here.
How do you focus on balance and wellness in residency?
Balance and wellness of our residents, faculty and staff are exceedingly important to us. Our program is friendly and family-like. Residents work with the same faculty both in the inpatient and outpatient setting. We are therefore well poised to follow a resident’s improvement trajectory to ensure personal and professional success.
We have a Wellness Committee to focus on work life balance, highlight personal successes and uniqueness, and arrange social events outside of the hospital. Our social media presence allows residents to share their personal and professional successes along with their individual QI / research projects. Our program is close-knit; faculty have an open door policy for each and every resident; and we are just the right size to be facile to develop a solution to any resident need.
Finally, the Cone Health system offers many health and wellness events; has an onsite gym for employee use; and provides free and anonymous counseling to employees. Learn more about Cone Health's LiveLifeWell programs.
