Jolly good, fellowships!

Several years ago, following an extensive external and internal review, BIDMC adopted an education strategic plan designed to insure that our training programs would meet high standards of academic and pedagogical rigor. This was suggested to me by our then Chief Academic Officer (and now Dean of Harvard Medical School) Jeffrey Flier, and led by Dr. Richard Schwartzstein, now our VP for Education, and addressed issues of governance, continuous assessment, as well as the usual space and financial concerns. We figured that this part of our three-part (clinical care, research, and education) mission should be held to the same standards we demand of the other two. Please recognize that BIDMC has always been known within the Harvard system as an excellent place for physician training, but we felt that we might have been riding on our laurels a bit and that a more disciplined approach to this area was warranted. The education plan was formally adopted by our Board of Directors in 2004.

Yesterday, I learned of one direct consequence of this coordinated and comprehensive approach. In the world of residency and fellowship programs, the measure of your success in program design and implementation is found in the periodic program reviews by the ACGME and in the terms of renewal granted by that organization. Nine of our internal medicine fellowship programs were reviewed in the last year, and all nine received the maximum term of recertification -- five years. Here they are, with the names of the program directors:

Endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism: Dr. Even Rosen
Gastroenterology: Dr. Ciaran Kelly
Hematology and oncology: Dr. Reed Drews
Infectious disease: Dr. George Eliopoulos
Cardiovascular disease: Dr. Duane Pinto
Interventional cardiology: Dr. Lawrence Garcia
Clinical cardiac electrophysiology: Dr. William Maisel
Sleep medicine: Dr. Robert Thomas
Nephrology: Dr. Robert Brown

The entire program area in overseen by Dr. Eileen Reynolds, our Internal Medicine Program Director, ably assisted by Dr. Buck Strewler, deputy chief of medicine. As noted by Mark Zeidel, our Chief of Medicine, "It is generally very difficult to do well on one fellowship, but to get perfect scores on all of them is really a tribute to Eileen, Buck and the program directors."

Overall now, 62.5% of BIDMC programs have cycle lengths of 4.5 or 5 years. Congratulations to all, and repeated thanks to Drs. Flier and Schwartzstein for helping to set us along the right path several years ago.