Balance of Medicine and Pediatrics Experiences
Our Med-Peds residents are fortunate to work with two excellent and well-balanced categorical programs. Graduates from each program routinely secure competitive fellowship and hospitalist opportunities. Our Med-Peds residents feel fully integrated into each categorical program while maintaining their own unique identity. Also, our busy children’s hospital service is housed in the same building as our internal medicine wards, which greatly simplifies the Med-Peds residents’ experience.
Friendly community environment with strong academic focus
The Greenville University Hospital System is a comprehensive community hospital complex with state of the art facilities. Most of our applicants are amazed by the friendly atmosphere here. The residents can attest to its reality. GHS serves as a tertiary referral center with a level III NICU and a level I trauma center. GHS also serves as the upstate campus for the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, providing clerkship experiences for medical students in a variety of settings.
Med-Peds residents
Our Med-Peds residents are a very cohesive, hard working, and fun-loving group of individuals. Our residents have a diverse range of interests within Med-Peds, but all share a dedication to making this program the best it can be. Med-Peds residents have made substantial contributions to the organization of our program in many ways, including through compiling Med-Peds web resources, international health opportunities, and an on-line survival guide.
Med-Peds Trained Program Director
Dr. Russ Kolarik joined the faculty at GHS in July of 2008. Dr. Kolarik is a dual board-certified, practicing Med-Peds Physician. He brings with him extensive experiences as a Med-Peds Residency and Fellowship Director at a major academic medical center. Dr. Kolarik is committed to career planning and development as well as the education and mentorship of the Med-Peds residents.
Med-Peds Hospitalist Service
Our residents are very fortunate to participate in a month-long Med-Peds Hospitalist rotation at nearby Greer Memorial Hospital. Greer Memorial is a community hospital within the Greenville Hospital System that is staffed by Med-Peds trained physicians. While on this service, residents will see firsthand what a career in hospital medicine for Med-Peds physicians involves. Residents provide hospital coverage for the adult medicine service as well as delivery room and well-baby care.
Med-Peds Trained Faculty
In addition to Dr. Kolarik, our Med-Peds residents interact with a number of Med-Peds faculty and fellows throughout our health system. Our Med-Peds faculty give noon conferences, teach on the Med-Peds hospitalist service, on the pediatric service, and attend our Med-Peds workshops.
Med-Peds Chief Resident
Our program has a dedicated Med-Peds Chief Resident position concurrent with the 4th year of training to help with the administrative and scheduling issues particular to Med-Peds. The Med-Peds chief resident works closely with the program director and program coordinator to ensure that the change days, clinics, and conferences are well coordinated between the programs. In addition, the chief resident helps to generate the most useful topics for the Med-Peds noon conferences and workshops. We announce our chief resident selection one year in advance to allow the chief elect to learn the position and participate in leadership opportunities when available.
Dedicated Med-Peds Program Coordinator
We are very fortunate to have Kelli DaSilva as a program coordinator who is dedicated only to the administration of the Med-Peds program. Many programs have shared coordinators between the medicine and pediatrics programs. A dedicated Med-Peds coordinator ensures that our residents know exactly what their Med-Peds administrative requirements are and how best to accomplish them. In addition, our coordinator tracks and files all evaluations, conferences, procedures, and curricular materials specific to our Med-Peds program. Plus, Kelli is just really cool!
Med-Peds conferences, journal clubs, and workshops
Our Med-Peds residency has a Med-Peds noon conference series that occurs twice monthly. Our Med-Peds noon conferences and journal clubs give our residents and faculty the opportunity to review medical topics specific to Med-Peds physicians, such as transitional care, pediatric and adolescent hypertension, or late effects of childhood cancer treatment. We also have twice yearly Med-Peds workshops that are attended by members of our Med-Peds faculty. Coverage is provided for all of our residents to attend the Med-Peds workshops. These workshop gives our residents an opportunity to discuss career planning or other unique Med-Peds topics with a variety of Med-Peds trained practitioners.
Information Technology
Our Med-Peds program is the beneficiary of a variety of information technology. Our residents all receive free iPhones for work and personal use on day one of their internship. This affords the residents the ability to stay connected with patient care, each other, and program leadership wherever they might be in the hospital system and take advantage of a variety of medical apps. In addition, each resident is given use of a tablet PC for four years for use with our outpatient electronic medical record system, eCW (electronic Clinical Works). This EMR is used in both the adult and pediatric resident clinics. Our program also uses the internet-based New Innovations program to track conferences, evaluations, procedures, individual learning plans, and other useful information. Each resident also has an electronic portfolio of all of their scholarly work and presentations that is stored on line. Our program director uses this program as well to make program announcements, display useful web resources and links for Med-Peds residents, and to make curricula and conference material available online.
Opportunities for Scholarship
Our Med-Peds residents are required to make a case presentation at the South Carolina American College of Physicians (Internal Medicine) meeting in their third year. In 2011, the conference is being held seaside in Charleston, SC. In addition, our residents are also asked to complete a quality improvement project for pediatrics during their 4 years that will be presented to the South Carolina American Academy of Pediatrics meeting in July of their senior year. This year the SC AAP met at the Grove Park Inn, in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, NC. Residents receive mentorship and feedback on their projects from the program director, Dr. Kolarik.
International Health Opportunities
Residents from the GHS Med-Peds program have participated in a variety of international health experiences, including trips to Kenya, South Africa and Brazil. A number or GHS attending physicians in various departments provide international health trips in which residents are welcome to participate. In addition, new Med-Peds faculty member Jeremy Byrd will be sponsoring a two-week international health rotation in Brazil with a number of our Med-Peds residents this spring.
Spanish-speaking and underserved populations
For applicants interested in caring for Spanish speaking and underserved populations, our ambulatory resident practices cater to the health care needs of these populations. Our pediatric ambulatory resident clinic has on-site interpreters and Spanish language handouts readily available. Our medicine ambulatory resident practice has two full-time social workers on site to help with the particular needs of the underserved.
Sports Medicine Fellowship Program
The Greenville Hospital System has one of the top Sports Medicine fellowship programs in the southeast. Our residents may take a sports medicine elective with the sports medicine faculty, attend lectures and conferences, and also apply for the fellowship program itself. Stephanie Reckenbiel, a 2008 graduate of the GHS Med-Peds program completed this fellowship and is currently practicing sports medicine in her home state of Oklahoma. Our residents have the opportunity to work with the sports medicine fellows at the Furman University Student Health Clinic during their adolescent medicine block.
Greenville Healthcare Simulation Center
To ensure procedural competence, our program provides training in procedures at the Greenville Healthcare Simulation Center. Our residents are able to use the simulation center to develop procedural competence in both adult and pediatric situations. Both categorical programs utilize the technology at the simulation center to develop procedural competency for their residents. In addition, the pediatric residency program is working to incorporate a simulation case each month as part of the noon conference series.
City of Greenville
In addition to all of the tremendous resources available within the hospital for our Med-Peds residents, perhaps one of the greatest aspects of our program is our location. Greenville, SC has consistently been rated one of the fastest growing and most desirable places to live in America. Greenville has a beautifully renovated downtown with a magnificent waterfall and park, a variety of restaurants, as well as theater and the arts. From Greenville, it is a short drive to the beach in Charleston, or to the mountains in Asheville, NC. Greenville is also roughly half-way between Charlotte, NC and Atlanta GA. Almost everyone who comes to Upstate South Carolina is "blown away" by what they see here. We would love for you to visit us.
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