Housestaff Training at Stanford
Stanford’s Internal Medicine Residency Program offers housestaff unique and diverse experiences in patient care. Our residents rotate through three hospitals, affording a wealth of clinical exposure and an understanding of operational activities of different health care systems.
Our University Hospital is a large tertiary care referral center for Northern California and beyond. Our second site is the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospital, a nationally acclaimed VA health care institution which serves as a referral center for Northern California, Nevada, and Hawaii VA hospitals. Finally our residents rotate through Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, a large County hospital, which serves a population of underserved and immigrant populations.
Stanford University Hospital
In addition to General Medicine Wards, our housestaff rotate through multiple specialty care rotations which offer intensive exposure to dedicated subspecialties. This affords our residents an opportunity to obtain a focused learning experience in dedicated specialities, while continuing to develop their exposure to acute inpatient medical management.
Subspecialty rotations offered at Stanford include Cardiology, Hematology, Oncology and Hepatology. Half of our residents have their primary care clinics at Stanford; the Internal Medicine Clinic, serving primarily a mix of indigent South Bay residents and immigrant populations, and the Stanford Medical Group, which is a community practice serving the Palo Alto area.
Palo Alto Veterans Administration Health Care System (PAVAHCS)
More recently our housestaff have been privileged with caring for young veterans as they return from abroad, which added a new dimension to the facility especially the outpatient clinics where many of our housestaff have their primary continuity clinic. Finally the PAVAHCS houses multiple award winning specialized centers such as our Hospice Unit, which the residents have an opportunity to rotate through during their Palliative Care rotation, and the Women's Health Services Clinics, which residents rotate through during their Women's Health Block elective.
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC)
Beyond Stanford
We encourage residents to take advantage of the rich community at Stanford or anywhere in the world by exploring special electives. These can be used for dedicated scholarly activity or international electives abroad. The program connects housestaff to the appropriate mentors to ensure that the elective time is productive and well planned.
International Health
Our program in international medicine, headed by our new Dean of International Health, Michele Barry, MD, provides an exceptionally unique opportunity for our housestaff to learn and practice medicine abroad to enrich their experience in global health. Residents are encouraged to participate in international electives and we are currently in the process of developing future sites for our residents to train.
Health Policy
The Stanford Internal Medicine Residency Program in conjunction with the Kaiser Family Foundation offers residents an opportunity to perform research in Health Policy. Two residents are selected each year for this two month rotation, and they are paired with a mentor who will help them design, publish, and present a research project. In addition, the residents travel to Washington D.C. where they have front-line exposure to policy makers and the opportunity to network and collaborate with them.
For example, residents Sumbul Desai MD,and Jessica Zhou, MD are completing projects investigating the impact of media on geriatric health-related behaviors, and the impact of a recession on health care, respectively. For more information regarding this rotation, please contact our associate program director, Neera Ahuja, MD
Opportunities abound in each location for excellent clinical and research based experience. We feel that it is this combination that will develop the optimal physician suited to practice medicine in this diverse landscape in which we live and work.