Welcome to the Brown University Internal Medicine Programs in Providence, RI

What's New

• Lifespan Hospitals Top Performers in LGBTQ Health Care Equity

  Lifespan’s four hospitals once again achieved Top Performer status on the Healthcare Equality Index (HEI), a national benchmark of hospitals’ policies and practices related to equitable and inclusive treatment of their LGBTQ patients, visitors, and employees.

  The Human Rights Campaign Foundation announced August 31 that Rhode Island, The Miriam, Bradley, and Newport hospitals had earned the designation. The Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer civil rights organization, has more than 3 million members and supporters.

  The HEI assesses hospitals’ policies and practices regarding non-discrimination and staff training, patient services and support, employee benefits and policies, and patient and community engagement.

  Participating hospitals “are not only on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also making it clear from their participation in the HEI that they stand on the side of fairness and are committed to providing inclusive care to their LGBTQ patients. In addition, many have made strong statements on racial justice and equity and are engaging in efforts to address racial inequities in their institutions and their communities. We commend all of the HEI participants for their commitment to providing inclusive care for all,” Alphonso David, HRC Foundation president, said in releasing the 13th annual report.

  A record 765 health care facilities participated in the HEI 2020 survey. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation provides a searchable database for the public to learn about hospitals near them.

• Residency Research Curriculum Shown to Improve Productivity and Experience

  In a recent study conducted by PGY2 Resident Michael Liu, MD and other resident researchers, coordinated by Resident Research Director Philip Chan, MD, research productivity by Brown Internal Medicine residents was demonstrated to grow by a more than 6-fold increase in both manuscript publication as well as national conference presentation over the 5 year period from 2015-2019. The increase was attributed to the implementation of a new research curriculum and intern research retreat in 2016, providing our residents with skills and guidance towards successful scholarly pursuits and mentorship.

• Department of Medicine Expands Bias Reduction Program

  June 30, 2020 marked the completion of the study component of the BRIM (Bias Reduction in Internal Medicine) project. This two-year program focused on faculty development efforts throughout the entire Department of Medicine addressing identification of implicit bias and mitigation techniques. Such techniques will be used by our faculty to assure and more inclusive, and welcoming environment for clinical education and research. Simultaneously, twelve Alpert Medical School Internal Medicine faculty members have been trained as workshop leaders and will present the workshops to all Internal Medicine residents beginning November 2020. Participation in the project is an important element in our department’s efforts to maintain and enhance a just learning environment for everyone.

• New Chief Residents AY 2021-2022 Named

  Brown IM Program Leaders announced the new Chief Residents selected for the Academic Year 2021-2022:

  Amy Mathew, MD
  Medical College of Wisconsin

  Jackie McKenna, MD
  Stony Brook University

  Gerry Ovide, MD
  East Virginia Medical School

  
  Christopher Ward, MD
  Monash University, Australia

  Daniel Yee, MD
  New York Medical College

• COVID Pandemic Response Protocol

  In response to the Spring 2020 COVID Pandemic, the Brown Internal Medicine Residency Program followed a Pandemic Response Protocol from April through June 2020. In this protocol, educational conferences were suspended during April and May. Elective Rotations were cancelled, and Continuity Clinic experiences were converted to a Telemedicine Format. The entire residency program was converted to a “platoon” model of 7 days “in”/7 days “out”, in which half of all of our residents were assigned to General Medical Wards, COVID Units and Critical Care Units at any given time. The other half of our resident population conducted telemedicine visits with continuity clinic patients and was able to rest and mitigate coronavirus exposure and risk. For this three-month period, our residents and faculty performed in a typically exemplary manner. Throughout the Pandemic Response Protocol, residency leadership conducted daily communication updates with residents and faculty and weekly housestaff meetings were held to assure safety, situational awareness, and plan for resumption of normal operations, which occurred on July 1, 2020. While disruptive, this period provided valuable and tangible experience in teamwork, flexibility, and resilience. Updated Rhode Island Statewide COVID data may be found here.