Training Tracks

Pathway Directors: Supraja Thota, MD and Connie Chace, MD (Medicine-Pediatrics faculty member!)

The RACE (Resident as Clinician Educator) Track is a training pathway devoted to building clinical education skills and a diverse teaching portfolio. Residents are paired with faculty mentors who provide focused training in medical education and oversee resident progression towards professional teaching goals. The objective of our RACE Track is to ensure that trainees interested in careers as medical educators are marketable for these positions upon completion of their training. Our 2-year curriculum includes protected time to build and practice teaching skills, design and evaluate curricula, develop administrative and leadership skills, and pursue scholarly projects in medical education. There are opportunities to work with learners at all levels in multiple settings with direct feedback. In addition, we encourage development of a robust teaching portfolio and pursuit of scholarly projects including case vignettes, case reports, case series, book chapters, review articles, and abstracts with the goal of presenting at regional and national meetings.

For questions regarding the RACE Track, please contact Dr. Thota: sthota@health.ucsd.edu

Pathway director: Annie Cowell, MD (Medicine-Pediatrics trained!)

The Global health Pathway offers residents interested in enhancing health care and health systems in lower and middle-income countries an opportunity to participate in a multidisciplinary experience that includes didactic and experiential clinical and research training in global health. Track residents will be paired with a faculty member who is engaged in global health during the first year of the track, and will work with them to engage in ongoing internationally-based collaborative projects in areas of medicine of interest to the resident. Current areas of collaboration includ internal medicine, hematology, oncology, infectious disease, cardiology, and pulmonary and critical care medicine. The pathway includes a Department of Medicine-sponsored month-long rotation at Maputo Central Hospital in Mozambique, where UCSD residents will work alongside counterparts training in internal medicine and it's subspecialties on the internal medicine wards. They will also participate in ongoing operational research projects that have been initiated as part of the Mozambique-UCSD collaboration. The pathway seeks to provide residents with exposure to a spectrum of disease not see in the US, an experience that provides insight into health care delivery in resource-limited settings and will prepare residents for advanced training in global health. Med/Peds residents may also have the opportunity to work with the pediatric department at Maputo Central Hospital, as well as attend an additional global health month in Guadalajara, Mexico through pediatrics if interested.

For questions regarding the Global Medicine Track, please contact Dr. Annie Cowell: acowell@health.ucsd.edu

Pathway director: Ali Farkhondehpour, MD

UC San Diego is an emerging leader in the field of hospital medicine. The goal of this pathway is to provide outstanding training to residents pursuing careers as practitioners, educators, and leaders in adult hospital medicine. This curriculum will be concordant with the principles of the adult Hospital Medicine Core competencies adopted by the Society of Hospital Medicine. Residents are selected through a competitive application process during the PGY-1 and PGY-2 year, based on interest, future career goals, and performance on the medicine wards. Once accepted into the pathway, residents attend monthly hospital medicine grand rounds, present a hospital-medicine focused journal club, and execute a mentored quality improvement project during a 1 month QI/Research block. During the PGY-3 or PGY-4 year, residents rotate on a 4-week "Junior Hospitalist" block where they work one-on-one with an academic hospitalist, maintaining their own census of patients, and see patients as a medical consultant. Elective rotations will be curated to include unique subspecialty rotations such as 2-weeks of Neurology-Stroke and 2-weeks of Neurocritical Care. The formal educational components will include high-yield, hospital-medicine focused didactics on topics including patient safety, billing/coding, business of hospital medicine, oncologic emergencies, co-management of the surgical patient, preoperative risk stratification, and more. Each resident will also be assigned a faculty mentor from the Division of Hospital Medicine to provide individual career guidance and mentorship during residency.

For any questions regarding the Hospital Medicine Track, please contact the pathway director, Dr. Ali Farkhondehpour: mfarkhondehpour@health.ucsd.edu

Pathway director: EB Sladek, MD

The Integrative Medicine Track is designed for interested residents to gain familiarity with the complementary and alternative therapeutics used by many of our patients, as well as non-prescription options for management of challenging medical problems such as pain, mental health, and falls. The core curriculum is a series of interactive modules licensed through the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and is divided into one 4-week block during the R2, R3, or R4 year. Relevant modules are also integrated into elective blocks, including endocrinology, rheumatology, cardiology, and gastroenterology. Visits to a variety of on-site integratvie clinics will also be arranged at recurring intervals. This pathway can be blended into any of the other tracks as resident interest dictates.

For questions regarding the Integrative Medicine Track, please contact Dr. Sladek: esladek@health.ucsd.edu