Miriam Parker, MD, FACP, Program Director

A core group of full-time Internal Medicine faculty members, complemented by a team of dedicated voluntary board-certified attendings, provide a dynamic teaching environment to Internal Medicine residents.

The program, which is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, is directed by Miriam Parker, M.D., F.A.C.P., a general internist and respected teacher of medicine. She serves as assistant clinical professor with the Medical College of Georgia. Prior to joining Atlanta Medical Center in 1997, Dr. Parker served as assistant clinical professor of medicine at Emory University where her specific areas of interest included preoperative evaluation and physical diagnosis. A fellow of the American College of Physicians and member of Alpha Omega Alpha, Dr. Parker has been honored with the Wyman P. Sloan Jr. Attending of the Year award in 1998 and has received recognition from the American College of Physicians for her efforts in community-based teaching. At AMC, Dr. Parker is actively involved in resident education in both the inpatient and ambulatory care arenas.

The patient population is an intellectually challenging mix of referrals from within the Atlanta Medical Center system, large primary care private practice groups, smaller community hospitals as well as patients from disadvantaged socioeconomic status groups. Atlanta Medical Center has a fully operational cardiac catheterization laboratory with angioplasty and electrophysiological capabilities. A sleep laboratory and PET scanning exemplify Atlanta Medical Center's commitment to advanced services. Interaction with residents and attendings from other disciplines fosters a strong academic environment in which to cultivate excellent clinical skills.

Residents are an integral part of the inpatient medicine and subspecialty teams at Atlanta Medical Center, providing care for a wide variety of patients with close attending supervision. Inpatient clinical support services are available on a 24-hour basis including laboratory and radiological information retrieval systems. The on-campus medical library is available 24 hours a day for electronic medical searching and journal access. Rotations are available in all internal medicine subspecialties including geriatrics. Rotations also may be arranged at Medical College of Georgia and other Tenet hospital sites.

The Internal Medicine faculty is comprised of seven full-time Internal Medicine faculty with expertise in a variety of subspecialties, the chief resident and a large cohort of voluntary attendings. The resident-to-full-time faculty ration is 4:1. Residents can expect exceptional close contact with their attending physicians, allowing for an outstanding learning environment.

Curriculum

Ten PGY-1 positions are available for the academic year 2006-7. The PGY-1 experience includes eight months of inpatient medicine (internal medicine wards, cardiology, ICU and infectious disease) and one month each of emergency room, neurology and an ambulatory outpatient block. Additional exposure to perioperative management within the Department of Anesthesia as well as a metabolic support rotation is required of all interns. Intern call is 1:4 for the majority of the year.

The PGY-2 and PGY-3 years allow for increased elective time within outpatient rotations. In-house call for those two years averages approximately 1:7. During those two years, residents complete rotations in all internal medicine subspecialty areas and are able to tailor their schedules according to their future career plans. Residents wishing to remain in ambulatory medicine are afforded the opportunity to select rotations in such areas as dermatology, exercise stress testing, rural medicine, and allergy/immunology.

The internal medicine residency includes a schedule of prescribed learning experiences, accomplished in a variety of teaching settings. Two formal conferences are provided daily to all residents in addition to informal didactic teaching by individual teaching attendings. Core curriculum lectures given at lunch are complemented by Morning Report, Journal Club, Case of the Week, Morbidity and Mortality Conference, and a weekly Board Review lecture series. Additionally Internal Medicine Grand Rounds is provided bi-weekly. Such diverse opportunities for learning ensure the residents' mastery of the knowledge and skills required to practice general internal medicine or pursue subspecialty training.

Throughout their three years of training, residents maintain a continuity clinic at the Sheffield Health Care Center one-half day per week where they care for a patient of patients with a wide variety of medical problems. The small faculty-to-resident ratio within the clinic optimizes resident learning opportunities in outpatient medicine. Residents are able to follow their own patients from the outpatient to the inpatient setting and thus gain invaluable experience in longitudinal care. Preventive medicine is stressed, and residents provide routine gynecologic care to their female patients.

Residents are strongly encouraged to participate in research projects that lead to publication and/or presentations at regional and national scientific meetings. In recent years residents have been active participants in meetings of the American College of Physicians, American College of Rheumatology, National Association of Inpatient Physicians (now Society of Hospital Medicine) and the American Gastroenterological Association. Resident participation in such activities is fully supported by Atlanta Medical Center.

Benefits

In addition to the standard benefit package, residents in Internal Medicine receive the following:

• meal reimbursement
• membership in the American College of Physicians
• subscription to the New England Journal of Medicine
• book monies
• board review materials (MKSAP and MedStudy)
• online subscription to Up-To-Date
• payment of NBME Step III fees
• a generous stipend for continuing medical education in their PGY-2 and PGY-3 years

All residents are provided with free membership at the Highland Athletic Club, a full fitness center adjacent to the hospital. The current annual resident PGY-1 salary for the academic year beginning July 1, 2006 is $41,222.00.

After Residency

Upon completion of residency training, our residents choose a variety of career paths. Historically about 25 percent of each graduating class has entered fellowship training with the remaining graduates entering private practice or accepting positions as hospitalists. Over the past five years, residents have entered fellowship training in cardiology, gastroenterology, infectious disease, endocrinology, rheumatology and geriatrics at a variety of academic centers such as Emory University, University of Washington, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, and Louisiana State University.

Internal Medicine Faculty

Miriam Parker, MD, FACP
Program Director
General Internal Medicine
Assistant Clinical Professor, Medical College of Georgia

Louis Lovett, MD, FACP, FCCP
Associate Program Director
Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Associate Clinical Professor, Medical College of Georgia

Brian Pearlman, MD, FACP
General Internal Medicine
Director, Center for Hepatitis C
Associate Clinical Professor, Medical College of Georgia
Assistant Clinical Professor, Emory University

Israel Orija, MD
Endocrinology and Metabolism

Robert Osburne, MD, MBA
Endocrinology and Metabolism

Vrishali Dalvi, MD
Chief Medical Resident
Academic Year 2006-2007