Internal Medicine Residency Program

Your Education

The UNM School of Medicine

The UNM School of Medicine has become known internationally as an innovator in medical education. The medical school has received two educational grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – the last being the Primary Care Initiative. This grant proposes curricular innovations that will impact positively on the post-graduate training program in Internal Medicine.

Innovative Curriculum

Thursday School: Every Thursday afternoon residents are excused from clinical duties to attend an afternoon of didactics. This new curriculum has replaced our noon conference and has gotten rave reviews from residents. The first 8 weeks of the academic year cover core topics in internal medicine for interns (PE, CHF, CAP, etc). Thereafter, each month is dedicated to a different subject matters—cardiology, pulmonology, etc. We also cover topics such as Palliative Care, Geriatrics, General Medicine and Residents-as-Educators and provide theme-based board review on a monthly basis.

Inpatient Curriculum: Created by our VA hospitalists, this curriculum includes weekly, case-based modules covering foundational inpatient topics. Our ward teams complete these interactive modules that also feature board review style questions on their call days.

Ambulatory Curriculum: These weekly, case-based discussions take place during continuity clinic and cover core primary care topics such as lower back pain, the headaches and screening for prostate cancer.

Excellent Standard Venues: Morning reports, IM grand rounds, hospitalist grand rounds, clinical pathological case conferences, journal clubs and more!

Innovative Rotations

Our program allows the flexibility and autonomy for residents to create their own electives such as medical education, transplant medicine, renal pathology, and radiation oncology.

Electives: In addition to standard medicine subspecialties and outpatient electives (like dermatology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, women’s health) we also are very proud of our non-traditional electives: medical economics, palliative care, integrative medicine, transfusion medicine, heme-pathology, and more.

International: Formal rotations include opportunities to study malaria and HIV in Kenya, Chagas and leishmaniasis in India, hantavirus in Chile and Panama and tuberculosis in Peru. We also have other international rotations in Bolivia, India, Chile and Panama. Finally, our residents have arranged their own international rotations in all parts of the world including India, Mexico and China most recently.

Global and Geographic Medicine Program
Our Global Health department continues to grow with a new Global Health Initiative that will establish multiple clinical and research sites for rotating before residents at including collaborations in India, Ecuador and Kenya.
Laboratories of Tropical Diseases

Research: Opportunities to pursue research your intern year allow preparation for applying for fellowship your second year. See research page for more details. For those who want to complete more in-depth projects, residents can complete up to 3 months of research electives.