I was planning to go to a large university-based program; why should I choose Huntington?

Because Huntington provides the best of both academic and community medicine.  Huntington residents work in a beautiful, state of the art, 636 bed hospital, and are taught by faculty who also hold appointments at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.  The curriculum is academically rigorous, with an emphasis on the development of independent clinical decision-making skills.  Our Internal Medicine Residency Program has received a 5 year accreditation from the ACGME, the longest that can be given.

What sort of medical and surgical specialties are residents exposed to at Huntington?

Huntington residents rotate through the usual medicine subspecialties such as cardiology, nephrology and gastroenterology, and are also required to rotate through neurology, oncology, endocrinology, infectious disease and hematology.  In addition, residents have the opportunity to rotate with hospitalists, palliative medicine, emergency medicine, sports medicine, ENT, dermatology, and myriad other specialties.   Residents with particular interests have taken electives in alternative medicine, physical medicine/rehabilitation, and gynecology, among others.  Huntington has a trauma service, neurosurgery, cardiothoracic surgery, orthopedics, gynecologic surgery, urology and other surgical specialties available for consultation.   Patients are frequently transferred to Huntington from other hospitals for a higher level of care.

What is Huntington’s reputation as a hospital?

Huntington is regularly listed as one of California’s best hospitals.  We have a Level 2 trauma center, cancer center, stroke center, inpatient psychiatric facility, high risk maternity, pediatrics, PICU and NICU.  We have a “Code Stroke” protocol to help patients get early thrombolytics or intervention with surgical clot retrieval, available at only a few neurosurgery centers.   We have a “Code Acute MI” protocol with a ‘door to balloon’ time of only 62 minutes. 

What if I want some exposure to a university based program?

Huntington and USC professors teach at each other’s institutions, providing a wide breadth of pedagogy. Every Huntington resident spends four months at the University of Southern California, rotating through Endocrine, Hematology, Infectious Disease, and Rheumatology.  In addition, residents can do elective rotations at other university-based institutions.

What about fellowships?

On average, about 60% of Huntington residents choose to go on to primary care or hospitalist medicine.   The remaining residents have had a 95% success rate in fellowship placement, obtaining fellowships in cardiology, rheumatology, geriatrics, nephrology, infectious disease and other subspecialties.  Our residents have placed at USC, UCLA, Johns Hopkins and many other excellent programs. 

I’m worried about ending up taking care of private patients for private attendings at a community hospital.  What is your patient mix like?

The patient mix for Huntington residents is structured to provide a variety of patient exposures. About 70% of the patients that our residents care for are indigent, uninsured or MediCal (Medicaid).  These patients have complex medical problems, and often have very advanced disease.  Huntington residents see pathology, rare complications of common diseases, and rare diseases as often as do residents in university-based programs.  The remaining 30% of patients seen by our residents have insurance, but no physician with privileges at Huntington.  The care that both of these groups of patients receive, and the autonomy that the residents have in giving that care, is identical.   Residents exercise 100% of the control over management of all of their patients.

What will my call schedule be?

The call schedule is every 8th night when on the medicine service, and averages every 11th night on other services.

What is a call night like?

The on-call team consists of a resident, an intern, and may also include a medical student.  One member of the on-call team admits for their medicine team, and the cross-covering member assists.  The on-call team is responsible for all codes in the hospital for 24 hours, starting at 8am on the call day.  The on-call intern is responsible for all overnight floor calls on resident team patients. The on-call team starts admitting at 4pm of the call day, and stops admitting when they reach their cap of 8 patients or at 7am the next day, whichever comes first.  The Academic Hospitalist group admits from 7am to 4pm each day, and after the on-call team reaches their cap. Duty hours rules are strictly enforced.

What is academic life at Huntington like?

Residents on Medicine attend ICU Rounds every morning.  All residents attend Morning Report three days a week, and Noon Conference three days a week.  Every Friday, a resident team presents a Case Conference attended by the greater medical community.  There are also monthly Grand Rounds and First Thursday conferences. 

What are the opportunities for research?

Residents can do clinical research with Huntington faculty, at the Huntington Medical Research Institute, or with other private clinical research programs locally.  Residents interested in bench research can collaborate with researchers at neighboring Cal Tech, or at USC. Each resident is expected to complete a publishable research project by the middle of their third year.

What sort of educational support is available at Huntington?

Huntington has a fully staffed, 24 hour a day, Health Sciences Library.  In addition, each resident has unlimited access to Up To Date, Ovid and other online research tools.  Access to the hospital’s electronic medical record and radiologic imaging system (PACS) is available throughout the hospital and from the residents’ home computers.  Wireless internet is available throughout the hospital, and residents will also be able to access the EMR from their iPhones and iPods. 

We have a fully equipped Skills Lab in which residents can learn and refine their procedural and ACLS skills on our state of the art robotic patient, iStan.  iStan’s software permits an infinite number of code scenarios to be run, and allows the “patient” to respond appropriately with changes in vital signs, bleeding, diaphoresis, airway edema, cyanosis and many other physical signs. Procedures that can be practiced on iStan include: intubation, CPR, defibrillation, peripheral and central line placement, Foley placement, and chest tube placement.

Support for conference poster and paper presentation is also provided.

 What are the opportunities for outpatient experiences at Huntington?

The Huntington Outpatient Clinic (“The Dispensary”) was created to provide primary and subspecialty care to the medically underserved members of our community.  Residents have a weekly half-day medicine clinic in which they serve as the primary care doctors for a panel of patients that they will care for throughout their three years of residency.  Each resident also has two one month Dispensary rotations during which the resident covers many of the subspecialty clinics, such as Women’s Health, Dermatology, Psychiatry, Endocrine, and Geriatrics.  In addition, residents cover specialty clinics in Cardiology, GI, Nephrology, Heme/Onc and Neuro when they are on those rotations.  Each resident must do a one month rotation in a community primary care clinic, as well as doing outpatient subspecialty rotations.

What opportunities are there to learn about global medicine?

There are many lectures on global infectious disease, travel medicine and other relevant topics.  Residents have an opportunity to participate in Huntington’s Phil Simon Clinic Tanzania Project in which medical volunteers travel to Arusha, Tanzania to provide medical care to adults and children with HIV and other illnesses.  Click the Tanzania Project link on the left for more details.

 What are the other benefits of being a resident at Huntington?

Current and former residents list the exceptional faculty, and the close relationships that residents form with them, as Huntington’s best feature.  The beautiful working environment and friendly, supportive staff is also another favorite feature.
Residents enjoy the comfort of having their own call room for their entire residency.  Each room contains two beds, a desk, bookcase, closet and bathroom, and is shared with one roommate.  Roommates are never on call at the same time, so the room is a private haven on call nights.

Residents also receive a $15 a day food allowance ($30 on call nights), which can be used at the hospital’s restaurant or our Starbucks coffee shop.

Concierge service is also available which provides car washes, auto service, dry cleaning, tickets to events, gift wrapping and travel services.