Leadership
Welcome from our program director
I am thrilled to welcome you to the Riverside Community Hospital Internal Medicine Residency Program website!
About our program
At a glance:
- 17 Categorical Internal Medicine Residents per year
- 7 Preliminary Residents
- Highly-qualified faculty from both academic and community settings, providing a unique training experience in a variety of practice settings and patient-payer mix
- State-of-the-art simulation lab and portable ultrasound equipment dedicated to inpatient wards teams
- Community-academic affiliation with University of California, Riverside School of Medicine
- Teaching hospital hosting over 450 medical students from University of California, Riverside School of Medicine, as well as other institutions
At the heart of our residency program lie the core competencies outlined by ACGME: patient care, medical knowledge, professionalism, systems-based practice, interpersonal and communication skills, and practice-based learning and improvement. With these competencies in mind, we have established a curriculum that draws on clinical experiences and encompasses case-based discussions, web-based learning, simulation, and lectures. Our aim is to empower residents with a progressive level of autonomy, fostering the development of their knowledge base and confidence as they progress from GPY1 to PGY3. Residents will complete inpatient rotations at Riverside Community Hospital, and provide continuity care with our outpatient clinic partners.
We are confident that with these tools, you will emerge as an excellent internist and lifelong self-directed learner. Our residents excel not only in patient care but also in their ability to thrive in the ever-changing healthcare environment.
Mission statement
The Riverside Internal Medicine Residency program’s mission is to develop the next generation of physicians and physician leaders. As a part of HCA Healthcare, we are driven by a single mission: “Above all else, we are committed to the care and improvement of human life”
This program is designed to offer residents a rewarding, educational environment where residents are provided individualized learning opportunities by faculty and staff who support and sustain one another throughout quality care delivery. Our faculty are committed to ensuring the residents’ clinical experience and educational needs are fulfilled while expanding residents’ perspectives to be inclusive of cultures, values, and ideals.
Program overview
The core competencies of ACGME (patient care, medical knowledge, professionalism, systems-based practice, interpersonal and communication skills, and practice-based learning and improvement) are the cornerstones of our residency program. With these competencies in mind, we have established a curriculum that draws on clinical experiences and encompasses case-based discussions, web-based learning, simulation, and lectures. We are confident that with these tools, you will become excellent internists and lifelong self-directed learners to adjust to the constantly changing skyline for health care.
Conference schedule
Education: The learning environment will include both inpatient and various outpatient venues, thus giving you a flavor of different practice styles and a diverse patient base. The designed curriculum puts emphasis on education over service and includes:
- Hopkins Modules
- Daily morning reports
- Daily noon conferences
- Monthly tumor board/morbidity and mortality conferences
- Monthly board practice exam
- Monthly journal clubs
- Monthly on-going lecture series including specialty presentations
- Friday school, a biweekly Internal Medicine Board review session
We also encourage scholarly development through poster presentations, case reports, and case presentations at local, regional and national conferences. We have a focused subspecialty education curriculum. Resident update and feedback sessions, as well as career preparation and practice management sessions are held on a regular basis to complete your educational experience.
Curriculum and rotation schedule
Our expertly crafted programs are designed to provide resident physicians with all the experiences and training necessary for professional success.
Salary and benefits
| Year | Salary | On-Call Meals | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| PGY1 | $78,582 | $950 | $79,532 |
| PGY2 | $80,933 | $950 | $81,883 |
| PGY3 | $83,762 | $950 | $84,712 |
Benefits:
- Market-adjusted salary
- On-call meal stipend for use in Mt. Rubidoux Bistro, our campus cafeteria
- 24-hour access to Resident Lounge
- PGY-1 orientation stipend
- Reimbursement for USMLE Step 3 or COMLEX Level 3
- Postgraduate training license and California medical license
- DEA registration
- ACLS/BLS certification
- Allocated vacation coordinated with Chiefs
- Conference meeting days and expenses for approved posters and presentations
- Lodging for away rotations
- Hospital-issued cellphone and laptop
- Free parking on-site
- Program support for professional memberships
- RCH Gym access
- Medical/Dental/Vision insurance
- 401(k) plan with match and stock purchasing plan
- Maternity and Paternity leave
Frequently asked questions
Riverside Community Hospital is quite busy! It has over 500 beds, with 69 ICU beds, and has one of the busiest emergency departments in Southern California. RCH has an accredited chest pain center, STEMI center, TAVR program, comprehensive stroke center, and comprehensive cancer center. It is also a Level 1 Trauma Center.
Our categorical residents are scheduled according to a 4+1 format. Primary care continuity clinic is not required for our preliminary residents (though opportunities exist).
All inpatient rotations are at Riverside Community Hospital. Our categorical residents' continuity clinics are located within 3 miles of the hospital: Riverside Medical Clinic, Platinum Providers Medical Clinic, and Altais Medical Group. The majority of subspecialty clinics are located in the city of Riverside.
The post-graduate plans for our residents run the gamut! Our residents have gone on to hospitalist and primary care positions throughout Orange County, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, and beyond. They have joined private practices, health care organizations like Kaiser, and academic groups, including the internal medicine faculty here at Riverside Community Hospital. We have had fellowship matches in cardiology, gastroenterology, critical care, nephrology, hematology/oncology, rheumatology, palliative care, and infectious disease.
We continue to invest heavily in handheld ultrasound training. We have developed new rotations to provide our residents with additional hands-on experience. In fact, each of our wards teams has its own hand-held ultrasound to incorporate into rounds and to direct patient care. This is in addition to our procedure workshop series in our simulation lab where we go over skills such as central line placement, thoracentesis, lumbar puncture, and pap smear.
This coming year, we plan to further invest in our hospitalist and primary care medicine tracks. In addition, the gastroenterology and interventional cardiology programs are welcoming its first fellows in July 2023, and pulmonology is expected to begin recruitment for their first class in the coming year.
This year, all residents were given a subscription to ACP Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment Program (MKSAP). PGY-3 residents also received UWorld for board preparation, and were enrolled in Awesome Review—a highly-rated board review course. We have also developed subject-based practice exams to help guide studying and track progress over time. Additionally, we offer longitudinal board review curricula led by multispecialty faculty and Chief residents.
In the 2022-2023 academic year, our institution hosted a total of 496 medical student rotations. Third- and fourth-year medical students participate on the inpatient wards rotation regularly. We are a primary clerkship site for the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine. For the 2023-24 academic year, we began hosting medical students from other medical schools throughout the country. Our residents also have opportunities to lecture and teach medical students on campus through our academic partnership with UC Riverside.
Our attendings are all clinical faculty of UCR-SOM, and the hospital serves as a primary clerkship site for medical students.
Our residents have access to the research division at HCA, allowing for large, retrospective database analysis. Others have taken part in quality improvement projects, research utilizing our cardiac catheterization lab outcomes data, prospective studies in medical education, and prospective pharmaceutical trials. In the 2022-23 academic year, we presented 10 posters at national conferences and published 6 articles to the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Cancers, Circulation, American Journal of Gastroenterology, and Cureus.
Our residents have presented research and quality improvement projects at national conferences including American College of Physicians (ACP), Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), American College of Cardiology (ACC), American Heart Association (AHA), Digestive Disease Week (DDW), American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), CHEST, European Annual Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR), IDWeek, ENDO, and National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). The majority of our interns have presented case reports at regional conferences for ACP and Society for General Internal Medicine (SGIM). Our residents receive travel and conference reimbursement on an annual basis.
In patient care, we work to promote strong working relationships with nursing, pharmacy, case management, environmental services, and nutrition services so that our residents can focus their energy on acute patient management. Resident input to program policies has a large impact on wellness. For that reason, we have class representatives to collect and share feedback to program leadership.
In addition, our residents serve on program-specific and GME-wide wellness and advisory committees to advocate for resident needs. The program strives to promote resident community—it supports 2-3 events annually, as well as class retreats. Our residents have recently held retreats at Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Newport Beach, go-kart courses, and mini-golf.
GME at RCH maintains a fully-stocked resident kitchen, filled with coffee, sandwiches, yogurts, parfaits, salads, candy, chips, soda, water, and more. Residents also receive a stipend for use in the hospital cafeteria, covering two meals daily.
Also, check out our RCH Eats story on Instagram for a sample menu! #nofilter
Yes! And the lot is less than 100 feet from our building.