How to Choose an Internal Medicine Residency Program

Written By: Rachael Kaine

The Basics: An Internal Medicine Residency

To start your career as an internist, you must complete an internal medicine residency at an accredited facility. This residency will teach you the most important things about operating in a hospital or care center and coming into contact with patients and other hospital staff. This residency period is designed and structured in a way that will provide a natural progression of knowledge, information, and skill development, and includes both on the job (in the hospital) and educational (classroom/text or research-based) training and opportunities. While the ultimate goals are acceptance and enrollment into the program and eventually completing the program and becoming a practicing internist, finding and choosing the most appropriate program are the first and most necessary steps.

Deciding How to Choose an Internal Medicine Residency Program

While you may feel that it is necessary to make a quick decision and enroll in a program as quickly as possible, there should still be a great deal of consideration that goes into selecting a program. The first thing that you need to do is to think about and define your own goals and desires. This is a good time for you to make a list of the things that are most and least important to you, and find programs that align with these things. Looking into things like the location of the program, the reputation, past graduate experiences and information, and even information about the field as a whole.

Compiling this information in a spreadsheet or other list type is a good way to compare things in a simple manner. This is a great method you can use to make decisions, and to narrow your choices down in a logical manner. Not only should you consider your needs in terms of the educational experience, but in terms of your lifestyle and overall capabilities - including financial, emotional and educational factors.

When going in for interviews, many professionals will recommend getting a few of them under your belt before interviewing with your top choices for residency programs. Though you may feel that this is a waste of time, it can give you a better idea of what to expect and potentially help you come up with questions that you’d like to ask, or that you should ask. Not only will interviewing at multiple places make you more confident, but it can also give you the chance to check on a lot of different factors like resident satisfaction, the organization of different internal medicine residency programs, the way that hospitals and facilities are organized, and even the patient volume.

While ultimately you’ll need to narrow down your lists and choose the program that is best for you, thinking ahead gives you the time to make an educated and informed decision. No matter if you choose to stay local and complete your residency in an area that is known to you in a small town or move to a large city or area and complete a program similar to Georgetown's internal medicine residency, every individual’s decision will come down to a personal, thorough choice.