Teaching Program

The American Board of PM&R requires four years of postgraduate training to be eligible for Board Certification. This includes one year of internship in which the resident acquires basic clinical skills, plus three years of training in PM&R. All training however, must be in a program approved by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education. In general, applicants are expected to arrange for their own preliminary year. Applicants are encouraged to apply for the one-year preliminary Internal Medicine programs at MSMC and EHC.

An average of seven new residents are accepted into the program annually for the three (3) years of training. Assignments to the inpatient, outpatient and consultation services are planned so that there is a balance between patient care and didactic teaching. Each resident rotates through the Rehabilitation Medicine Departments of the various affiliated hospitals. The residents take night-call on an average of once every eighth night with the frequency of call weighted by seniority, such that the frequency of night call decreases as one proceeds through the program. The program is fully compliant with New York State and national duty hour regulations for residents.

There are designated rotations in pediatric rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, brain injury, electrodiagnosis and musculoskeletal medicine in addition to general rehabilitation. Each resident receives four months of elective time to focus their training according to their specific interests. Training in neuro-urology is provided as part of the rotation through the spinal cord injury service at MSMC. Each resident is required to complete a scholarly work of presentation quality by the end of their training.

Although the actual order of rotations varies from resident to resident, a typical set of rotations would be as follows:

In summary, during the 3 years of residency, a resident will spend approximately 12 months at MSMC, 13 months at EHC, 7 months on the Rehabilitation Services at the VAMC, and 4 months on an elective. Electives may be taken within the Mt. Sinai system or at outside facilities.

Resident supervision is provided by the full-time and part-time medical staff of the affiliated hospitals, who all have faculty appointments at the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Residents, while on the inpatient units, are usually assigned between 10-13 patients. Senior residents are expected to participate in the mentoring of the more junior residents. Two of the senior residents are selected by the faculty and residents to serve as Chief Residents. The department also sponsors an accredited residency training program in spinal cord injury medicine and a non-accredited fellowship in sports and spine rehabilitation.

Patient care is the major vehicle for residency training. However, extensive didactic instruction is provided through formal lecture session, conferences and journal clubs. The lectures, which occur regularly on a weekly basis throughout the residents training, cover all areas of rehabilitation. During the residents second year, they will participate in a cadaveric dissection of the back and extremities to enhance their knowledge of pertinent anatomy. In addition, all residents are required to attend regional courses on prosthetics and orthotics. All senior residents are provided with financial support to enable them to attend the annual meeting of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation or the Association of Academic Physiatrists. Support is also provided to residents who are presenting a paper at a national conference or seminar.