Medicine
Chair:
Robert Harrington, MD,
Department web site:
http://medicine.stanford.edu
Faculty of Medicine:
http://medicine.stanford.edu/faculty/
Courses offered by the Department of Medicine are listed under the subject code MED on Stanford Bulletin's ExploreCourses web site.
The Department of Medicine does not offer degrees; however, it does offer a large number of classes that are open to undergraduates, medical students, and other graduate students. The department also accepts graduate students as advisees for study and research. Undergraduate students may arrange individual research projects under the supervision of department faculty. With respect to its educational mission, Department of Medicine trainees also include interns, residents, clinical and research fellows, and postdoctoral fellows.
Research programs within the Department of Medicine are directed towards discoveries and applications that lead to meaningful improvements in the health and health care of people in the United States and throughout the world. The department’s faculty includes physician investigators working at the cutting edge of cell and molecular science to elucidate the fundamental basis of diseases. Clinical investigators in the department are developing innovative approaches to enable the translation of new discoveries into applications that directly improve the care of individual patients. Population health scientists employ a diverse set of methodologies and utilize comprehensive sources of data to strengthen the support and delivery of health care through disease prevention and health promotion, and to improve the health of communities.
INSTRUCTION FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS
Preclinical instruction is offered to first and second year students in the Practice of Medicine course and in the Human Health and Disease module. These courses are taught by faculty from internal medicine and from other disciplines. In addition, an elective course, Introduction to Internal Medicine, is offered for first and second year medical students.
Directed reading and research opportunities are available under the direction of individual faculty members.
Clinical instruction typically begins in the third year of medical school—the “clerkship” year. There is a one month ambulatory experience in medicine that is required as well as a two month inpatient clerkship. The students in these two rotations acquire core knowledge in internal medicine largely through being involved in patient care, but also through didactic lectures and seminars. The department also has a large number of subinternships available at various hospitals: Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto Veteran’s Administration Medical Center, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and Kaiser Hospital Santa Clara. These experiences where the student functions almost as interns, are meant to teach students therapy and management of disease in an inpatient setting. Other subspecialty elective experiences are also offered.
RESIDENCY TRAINING
The residency program in Internal Medicine provides a three-year intensive experience across General Internal Medicine and each of the core Internal Medicine subspecialties. During this training period, residents rotate through general medicine wards, core subspecialty services, and ambulatory outpatient clinics at Stanford University Hospital, Palo Alto VA Hospital, and Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.
Residents have opportunities to care for patients with a wide variety of acute and chronic illnesses in both the inpatient and ambulatory settings. In addition, residents can choose from a variety of electives, including: Yale/Stanford Johnson and Johnson Global Scholars Program abroad, research projects with faculty mentorship, participation in a Kaiser Family Foundation Policy Research Project, or work on a Quality Improvement project. The residency program has also developed the Stanford 25, an initiative led by Abraham Verghese, MD designed to showcase and teach 25 fundamental physical exam skills and their diagnostic benefits. Faculty work closely with residents, as the Department strongly supports the concept of team care.
POSTDOCTORAL TRAINING
Fellowship and postdoctoral training is available in all divisions: Bone Marrow Transplantation, Cardiovascular Medicine, Endocrinology, Gerontology and Metabolism, Gastroenterology and Hepatology, General Medical Disciplines, Hematology, Immunology and Rheumatology, Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Biomedical Informatics Research, Nephrology, Oncology, Preventive Medicine, Primary Care and Outcomes Research, and Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. For information, refer to the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs home page located at http://postdocs.stanford.edu/ or the departmental home page.
