Harbor-UCLA Internal Medicine Residency:
Frequently Asked Questions

What changes have been implemented for the 2011-2012 academic year?
Of course, the biggest change is our adjustment to the new duty hours requirements.  We wanted to maintain our "team" structure on the inpatient services and minimize the number of handoffs on the admitting day.  Therefore, we have kept our teams of interns and residents together as much as possible, and have spun off some cross-cover duties to a night float resident.

In addition, we have continued our non-teaching hospitalist team. This team, composed of full-time hospitalists and nurse practitioners, decreases the demands on housestaff because some number of patients go directly to this service.  This means our intern-resident teams free of  admissions after midnight (except for ICU and CCU patients.)  

We also have a team of dedicated "academic" hospitalists who are preparing a new curriculum in hospital medicine. They lead one or more of our inpatient teams with innovations in scheduling, teaching methods, outcomes studies, and other important changes.  

What do graduates of the training program do after they finish training? 
Graduates of our program have entered any field of internal medicine, but there has always been strong interest in subspecialty medicine. For example, our 2011 graduates have gone into cardiology, gastroenterology, hematology/medical oncology, allergy-immunology, and pulmonary and critical care medicine, as well  as chief residencies and hospitalist practices!   

With what medical school is Harbor-UCLA Medical Center affiliated? 
UCLA is part of our name, and Harbor-UCLA is a major teaching hospital for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. 100% of our full-time faculty hold medical school appointments as Assistant, Associate, or Full Professors. More than one-third of UCLA students do rotations in medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and almost all students rotate at Harbor-UCLA at some time.  

What is it really like being a resident at Harbor-UCLA? 
Residents are given plenty of responsibility for evaluating patients and selecting  therapy for both inpatients and outpatients, but still work closely with the attending  faculty physician in making clinical decisions. There are essentially no private patients, so a resident doesn't have to interact with a different attending physician for each  patient.  As a resident, you get your own panel of patients in your continuity clinic, and this  allows you to follow many of the patients you see in the hospital. The patients have challenging and interesting medical problems that span the complete breadth of  internal medicine. You may have a patient with acute leukemia receiving induction chemotherapy on your service, at the same time as one with malaria, and another  with severe community-acquired pneumonia in the ICU. You have responsibility for teaching, too. Your team will have interns, residents,  medical students, and an attending, so there will be a lot of teaching going on at all  levels. As a resident, you will present several topics to your peers, including an  Evidence-Based Medicine lecture, several "Chief's Rounds" discussions at Morning  Report, and a Journal Club.   

Do I know any faculty or residents in the Department of Medicine at  Harbor-UCLA? 
Take a look at our brochure and website for a list of faculty members, and residents and their  medical schools.  

What was the most recent ABIM Pass Rate for Harbor-UCLA graduates? 
For 2010, the pass rate was 94%, making our  most recent three-year cumulative pass rate 96%.   

What is the accreditation status of the Harbor-UCLA internal medicine  program? 
Continued full accreditation. At our last site visit, we were pleased to receive the  maximum five-year accreditation by the ACGME-RRC for Internal Medicine. The  ACGME-RRC has extended our accreditation by an additional year, as it did for all programs with five-year accreditation cycles.  Our next site visit is scheduled for 2012.

How can I obtain the Training Program Brochure? 
We provide up-to-date information about our training program, including a  description of the program, faculty and resident lists, information about stipends,  pictures, and application information in our brochure which can be found here.

Do you have a Preliminary Medicine internship program at Harbor-UCLA  Medical Center? 
Yes. You can apply through ERAS. Be sure that you apply for the Preliminary Medicine  program, not Categorical Medicine. We will have 4 positions for Preliminary Medicine this year. You should also note that we do not require interviews for Preliminary  Medicine. We will invite some candidates for non-mandatory information sessions.  These are not interviews and are not required.  

Do you use ERAS and NRMP for first-year resident (intern) positions? 
All positions for first-year residents are offered through the National Resident  Matching Program (NRMP) only and applications are only accepted through the  Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).  

What do I need to complete my ERAS application? 
The deadline for applications is December 15, 2011. Submit the following: Application  Personal Statement  Medical School Transcript  Dean's Letter  Three letters of recommendation (including one from the Chair of the Department of  Medicine).  USMLE Transcripts (sent directly from NBME to ERAS) For international medical graduates, you must have your California Letter before the  deadline for applications.

What about interviews? 
After review of application material in ERAS, we will be offering interviews for Categorical Medicine by invitation only. As noted above, there are no interviews  required for Preliminary Medicine candidates. Because we are a relatively small  program with only 17 Categorical Medicine positions, the number of interviews has  been limited to about 30% of applicants. We expect to have about this same number of interviews this year.  

What's the bottom line?  
Our program is located in a busy public hospital, so it is exciting, challenging, and often  fun to learn medicine here. Your colleagues (fellow residents) are eager, enthusiastic,  bright, and dedicated, and you will find yourself making close lifelong friendships. Our  graduates tell us that they are well-prepared for fellowships or internal medicine  practice when they leave Harbor-UCLA.