Primary Care Track
Welcome to the Primary Care Track in the MercyOne Des Moines/Primary Health Care Internal Medicine Residency Program.
Our program is a fully accredited three-year Internal Medicine Residency. Our Primary Care Medicine track focuses on general Internal Medicine with additional training in ambulatory medicine.
At the completion of training, residents are board eligible by the American Board of Internal Medicine. Residents who graduated from an Osteopathic medical school will also be eligible to become board certified through the American Osteopathic Board of Internal Medicine. The Primary Care Track includes all of the required rotations of the categorical track but includes an emphasis on rotations in ambulatory care.
Primary care ambulatory Internal Medicine training provides residents an opportunity to take care of both chronic and acute conditions. Additional ambulatory rotation provides patient management skills for coordination of patient care with an emphasis on preventative care. As our population ages, there is an ever increasing need for Primary Care physicians.
Our program is affiliated with Primary HealthCare, a federally qualified teaching health center which has provided health care to underserved populations of central Iowa for over 30 years. The resident’s Continuity Clinic is located at the PHC East Clinic, which is in eastern Des Moines, approximately 15-minute drive from Mercy Hospital. Residents provide medical care to a diverse population of central Iowa residents, including many immigrants in the Des Moines area. This is a unique opportunity for our residents to learn about many different cultures and customs which help direct their medical care.
The Primary Care ambulatory residents spend half day per week at the Continuity Clinic. There are additional four week block rotations during the three years of residency. We have 2 additional ambulatory Internal Medicine clinics available for rotations with physicians employed in the Mercy Clinic system.
Rotations include a strong inpatient focused rotations. These include night float, inpatient teams, 2 months of Critical Care and Emergency medicine. Subspecialty rotations are nephrology, neurology, pulmonary medicine, cardiology and infectious disease. All Internal Medicine residencies require 10 months of inpatient rotations, including 2 months of Critical Care.
In addition to inpatient training, our emphasis is on rotations in ambulatory medicine to prepare the residents with skills needed as primary care physicians. Outpatient/ambulatory rotations include endocrinology, rheumatology, hematology/oncology GI and Women’s health/Community health. Elective rotations include: dermatology, ENT, ophthalmology, psychiatry, sports medicine, allergy and immunology, orthopedics, substance abuse disorder and pain clinic/pain management. The Continuity Clinic has a certified diabetes educator who is a PhD pharmacist. She is available to assist residents and educate patients in diabetes management. She provides information in regards to medication questions.
Primary Care track trains residents to practice an inpatient setting if they choose. The focus is on additional opportunities for ambulatory medicine training. The program is flexible in an attempt to meet the interests of each individual resident. The program meets with the residents and designs a program which will provide training in the career path they are pursuing.
Primary Care Internal Medicine track ambulatory medicine encourages residents to pursue their interest in education, research and leadership opportunities. All Internal Medicine residents participate in a QI project during the residency. This provides an opportunity to work closely with the categorical residents in developing and implementing QI projects. QI projects have included the benefits of improved diabetes control in the underserved population by providing them with continuous glucose monitoring devices. In addition, they met with the diabetes educator at the time of office visits. Our study revealed improved patient diabetic control with the average decrease in HgA1C by 1.48%.
Our goal with the Primary Care Internal Medicine ambulatory track is to provide residents with a full range of educational experiences, including primary care to complex care, inpatient and ambulatory rotations and serving a diverse population. Our training includes evaluating social determinants of health and the effect on our patient population.
If you are looking for a Primary Care Ambulatory Internal Medicine residency program that will provide an emphasis on ambulatory training, we hope you will consider our program at MercyOne Des Moines/PHC Consortium.
