As I mentioned in the last post, I will be staying here at LLU for at least a year after residency officially ends. I will be staying on as one of the Internal Medicine Chief Residents.

So what does that mean?

I have found that it means different things to different people. In other residencies, the chief resident position or title is given to residents in their final year of training. And during that year as “chief resident” they are given additional tasks. From what I have seen, this is the case with other residencies like Emergency Medicine and ?many surgical specialties.

In Internal Medicine, the chief resident is someone who has already completed their residency. A quick search on google for “chief resident” brought me to the Duke Internal Medicine website. This is their description of what a chief resident is:

The Chief Resident position is the single largest investment in leadership made by the Department of Medicine, and the chiefs serve as key leaders for the program. Chiefs are selected for their exceptional clinical and leadership skills. The chiefs work as a team to provide leadership and support of the key missions of the residency program and function as key mentors and advocates for the residents. While each chief has separate responsibilities at their primary site (Duke, Durham VA Medical Center, Duke Regional Hospital, and VA Quality/Safety), the camaraderie among the chiefs sets a positive tone for the program and allows us to accomplish the many goals we set for the year. Notably, many former chief residents remain on faculty at Duke, serving in leadership positions throughout the health system. In recent years, the chief residents have been responsible for organizing the Stead Societies, reorganizing the noon conference series, instituting leadership training for JARs at the VA and evaluating patient flow on the general medicine services. In addition, the chiefs galvanize the competition for our annual Turkey Bowl, lead recruitment of new interns and have a tradition of providing entertainment at the annual DOM Holiday Party.

Chief residents are chosen during the SAR (PGY-3) year, and serve as chief residents with a faculty appointment during their PGY-5 year. Typically Chief Residents complete a fellowship or hospital medicine faculty year during the PGY-4 year, and return to their fellowship or hospital medicine position after completion of the chief year.

[emphasis added]
– Source

They make it sound like quite the lofty position, don’t they? Apparently their chiefs serve in their PGY-5 year (5 years after graduation from medical school).

It would be important to note that there are differences with how my progarm does things. Internal Medicine (IM) Chief Residents here are selected during their PGY-3 year but proceed directly into the chief residency following the completion of residency. And I would hold off on claiming any “exceptional clinical and leadership skills” for myself. Also (not noted above), we will spend time rounding as the Attending Physician with the teaching service for a number of weeks throughout the year. But for the most part, the job responsibilities are similar across teh country for IM Chief Residents. In fact, the new group of LLU chief residents will be attending the APDIM Meeting in Houston, Tx in April. This meeting brings together leaders from IM residencies across the country (including program directors and chief reisdents) to sit down and learn about education and leadership.