Residency Program

Resident Teaching

Primarily second and third year residents give lectures to the staff of the Pediatric Primary Care Center and the Internal Medicine Primary Care Center. Additional lectures are given to the internal medicine and pediatric house staff. The majority of the invitations to speak to the various departments come from interactions on the consult service.

During the second and third years of the residency, lectures are also given by the residents to members of the medical staff at the West Haven VA Hospital.

The Dermatology Residents participate in the teaching of medical students in each year of their residency. The first year residents round weekly with 5-8 medical students on the dermatology elective. This is an opportunity for the resident to expound on current treatment plans and on diagnostic evaluations that are being carried out on their patients.

During the second year of residency, the residents develop a one-hour lecture on a topic of their choice. The lecture material is reviewed and slides are produced with the help of the faculty. Over the past two years, these lectures have included the topics of Vasculitis, Skin Cancer, Obstetrical Dermatology, Pediatric Dermatology, Pruritus, Immunotherapy, Cutaneous Drug Reactions, and Psoriasis. Students attending the lecture provide feedback to the course director. The second year residents have the opportunity to give this lecture at least twice and then as a third year resident they will have the opportunity of giving this lecture 3 to 4 times. The goal is to have the residents complete the program with an extremely focused and polished presentation.

The third year residents are involved in several aspects of medical student teaching. The consult resident takes the group of students on the dermatology elective on weekly consultation rounds. This involves assigning students to particular patients and reviewing those patients in depth. As mentioned previously, the third year students are involved in the didactic portion of the medical student course, and in addition to their own lecture, the third year residents provide a standardized introductory lecture to the medical students when they begin the elective.

Near the end of the third year, the residents participate in the clinical instruction component of the second year medical student course called “Introduction to Clinical Medicine”. This involves leading a group of six students to see a set of seven outpatients.

The Dermatology residents also provide lectures to students in the Physician Associates Program. The lectures are 1 to 2 hours in length and cover topics such as general medical dermatology, skin infections, and skin neoplasms.

In summary, throughout their training the residents develop an ability to present and discuss patients at the bedside, to condense material related to a particular topic into a coherent one hour presentation, and to develop the clinical skill of teaching a group of 8-10 students.