We often learn most from our patients.  UIC caters to a diverse patient population, providing primary care to the surrounding community while also serving as a tertiary referral center. UIC prides itself as serving an urban population that is historically medically underserved. Our patients greatly enrich the training experience of our residents.

Bi-directional evaluation of residents, faculty, and the residency program occurs continuously on several levels. After every rotation residents have the opportunity to evaluate the educational experience of the rotation, their faculty, and their peers. Similarly, residents are evaluated by their peers and faculty after each rotation. Residents are also evaluated using faculty observed mini–clinical evaluation exercises (mini–CEXs), patient satisfaction surveys, and 360-degree staff evaluations.  In addition to the national ACGME survey, our residents also complete an internal residency program survey to help determine future directions and improvements we can make.

The UIC MedPeds Residents participate in a curriculum which has been designed to train and educate resident so they meet the ACGME milestones for advancement. Our curriculum prepares residents for the demands of clinical practice as well as for the certifying exams of both the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) and American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM).

MedPeds residents have regularly scheduled educational activities including didactic lectures, simulation, case-based interactive discussions, and bedside teaching.

• MedPeds ambulatory conference series (weekly)
• Morning reports
• Noon conferences
• Patient safety and quality improvement conferences
• Journal clubs in Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, and MedPeds
• EBM didactics
• Clinical Pathophysiology Conferences
• Weekly Grand Rounds in both Pediatrics and Internal Medicine
• Morbidity and Mortality Conferences
• Other rotation/specialty specific conferences

• University of Illinois Hospital (UIH) and Children’s Hospital University of Illinois (CHUI)
  • General pediatric and subspecialty wards
  • Newborn nursery
  • General internal medicine and subspecialty wards
  • Intensive care units including neonatal, pediatric, cardiac, and medical
  • Emergency department
  • Adult acute observation unit
• Jesse Brown VA Medical Center
  • General internal medicine wards
  • Medical and cardiac intensive care unit
  • Primary care and subspecialty clinics
  • Emergency department
• UI Health Outpatient Care Center
  • Primary care and subspecialty clinics
• Some rotations utilize community clinical sites and the combined resources of the other institutions in the Illinois Medical District (i.e. Stroger, Rush), as well as, other institutions in the Chicagoland area (i.e. Shriners Hospital for Children – Chicago, Advocate Children’s Hospital – Park Ridge)

In addition to the hands-on experiences residents have on clinical rotations, we are fortunate to have the resources of the Simulation and Integrative Learning (SAIL) center to enhance resident training.  Here residents have the opportunity to practice and demonstrate their clinical, procedural, and communication skills in immersive, simulation-based, clinical encounters with highly trained standardized patients, task-trainers, and mannequin code simulators.  Additionally, residents will receive training in the use of point-of-care ultrasound for diagnostics and visual guidance when performing invasive procedures.  Residents will also receive training in telehealth. Historically, UIC has been one of the main providers for the Illinois prison health system and residents gained experience via our prison telemedicine clinics.  However, given the clinical climate changes as a result of COVID-19, all of our ambulatory services routinely offer telemedicine options for our patients.  Finally, additional in-hospital code simulations run by faculty occur on a regular basis.

High quality teaching is a priority throughout the University of Illinois. Physicians possess the unique role of being both students and educators throughout their career. We have a long-standing history for providing our residents with training to develop and improve their teaching skills. As part of our residents-as-teachers curriculum, residents are expected to lead conferences and are given direct feedback on their performance. Additionally, we are fortunate to have strong collaboration with our Department of Medical Education (DME), as it pertains to access to additional skills workshops and collaboration/mentorship for medical education scholarship. There are numerous opportunities for residents to teach their colleagues during our conference series, in clinic, and on rounds; as well as, to teach our medical students during clinical rotations, as their initial clinical preceptors, leading clerkship conferences, and precepting them in clinical and procedural skills workshops. Residents who have a strong interest in teaching are strongly encouraged to apply to the Medical Education track.

All residents participate in quality improvement initiatives.  The curriculum is implemented during the MedPeds outpatient educational conference series, supplemented by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement patient safety and quality improvement training modules.  Residents choose their own projects and are provided faculty supervision and guidance.  To maximize impact and to reinforce the importance of sustainable interventions, residents partake in continuous/longitudinal projects with their fellow post-graduate year colleagues.  Enterprise level quality improvement education is also available internally, for those they wish to pursue further training.

UIC is fortunate to be the home of the UIC School of Public Health, one of the top public health schools in the country.  All UIC residents have the opportunity to pursue a Master of Public Health degree during their training at UIC, and the tuition is completely waived by the university.  MedPeds training tends to attract those with a population-based perspective on health care. Thus, it is no surprise that we have had several MedPeds residents take advantage of this opportunity over the years and obtained their MPH during residency.

• Tuition waived
• Classes offered online and at night
• 4 divisions – community health sciences, health policy and administration, environmental and occupational health, and epidemiology and biostatistics

Additional degree programs available to housestaff include: a Masters of Health Professions Education (MHPE) for those interested in being leaders in medical education, a Masters in Business Administration via the UIC Liautaud MBA Program, and/or a Masters in Clinical and Translational Science  (MS CTS).