Contemplating fellowship? Considering a career as a Hospitalist or in Primary Care? Interested in Medical Education? Check out the KORE Pathways: Kaiser Oakland REsident Pathways! These immersive mentored experiences allow you to pursue your unique passions within medicine designed specifically to prepare you for your career. These are optional “Pathways”—not “tracks”- meaning you can sample from multiple pathways and are not locked into any single one. Examples include:
- Research/Fellowship Pathway
- Primary Care Pathway
- Hospital Medicine Pathway
- Medical Education Pathway
- Medical Humanities Pathway
Each pathway offers:
- Unique curriculum with the ability to fulfill criteria for residency “Distinction” in that area
- Experienced mentor
- Career development
- Development of leadership skills
- Quality Improvement (QI) or other scholarly project opportunities
And if your passions lie in something more unique, we got you covered! Kaiser Oakland residents have completed rotations in Medical Journalism at ABC News in New York, Medical publishing (working alongside the editorial Board of a major medical journal), Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, Lifestyle Medicine, Health Administration, and Strategy Development, Design & Innovation, mobile health, and the list goes on. We are committed to getting to know you as individuals and supporting your passions so you can step into the career of your choice after graduation.
Here are some highlights of the traditional KORE rotations:
Research/Fellowship Pathway
Mentor: Dr. Joan Lo, MD, FACP
Residents in this pathway will work closely with the faculty at Kaiser Oakland and our Division of Research to prepare for a career that encompasses academic medicine and/or subspecialty training. Our Division of Research consists of over 400 staff and a budget in excess of $50 million. Kaiser Permanente (KP) researchers have published in NEJM, JAMA, and many other subspecialty journals, and have a strong history of mentoring young clinical investigators. In the Research/Fellowship Pathway, you will have several weeks of dedicated research time each year, with the goals of presenting at a regional/national meeting and submitting a manuscript for publication during residency. You will receive formal training in clinical research methods, a KP faculty research mentor, and support from research project managers. Once a project has been identified, you will receive support and additional assistance from analysts and biostatisticians at the Division of Research. We also support off-campus rotations to facilitate collaborations with outside mentors, especially for those pursuing subspecialty training. Moreover, if you are interested in obtaining an MPH at UC Berkeley, consider applying to our combined IM/MPH program. Many residents combine KORE-Research activities with other KORE pathways, depending on their future career interests.
Primary Care Pathway
Mentors: Dr. Chitra Chandran, MD, Dr. Nicole Tran MD, and Dr. Leslea Brickner, MD, FACP
You will be prepared for the varied roles of the primary care physician of the 21st century while you practice firsthand in one of the most sophisticated health systems. You will learn advanced office dermatology (including cryotherapy, dermoscopy, and telederm), management of musculoskeletal disorders (including joint aspirations and injections), office gynecology, use of ultrasound in outpatient medicine, chronic condition management of populations, and optimal uses of technology (including secure messaging, telemedicine and video visits). You can also become board-certified in Lifestyle Medicine during residency.
- Strong mentorship from a clinic module with preceptors with varied clinical interests (IT and EMR, geriatrics, young adult, ECG interpretation, cancer screening, chronic conditions management, QI leadership, etc.)
- Leadership skills in 360-degree clinic team which includes a Roving Dermatologist, Diabetic Care managers, embedded Clinical Pharmacists, and Behavioral Medicine specialists
- Electives in sports medicine, health education, dermatology, community health, POCUS, pre-operative medicine, teaching in the outpatient setting, and health policy
- Quality Improvement: recent projects include Improving screening for latent TB in immigrant populations; Improving skincare for common skin conditions on the skin of color
- Committee opportunities: Pharmacy and Therapeutics, Peer Review, Program Evaluation Committee Outpatient Medicine, Institutional Graduate Medical Education Committee
- Distinction in Primary Care Pathway: while residents may be able to do any of these experiences during residency, to fulfill criteria for the ‘Distinction in Primary Care’ designation a resident completes Advanced Primary Care core clinical electives; advanced training in one or more areas (e.g., ambulatory POCUS or Sports Medicine); and a mentored research, QI, or educational project in Primary Care
Hospital Medicine Pathway
Mentors: Dr. Aubrey Ingraham, MD, and Dr. Aditya Gangopadhyay, MD
Kaiser Oakland was an early adopter of the Hospitalist model dating back to the 1990s. The Hospitalist division includes over 60 faculty members, many of whom are active in local and national Society of Hospital Medicine activities. Assistant Program Director Dr. Aubrey Ingraham, MD, is an instructor in SHM’s National point-of-care ultrasound courses, and Dr. Baudendistel was the former SHM National Ethics chair and a Deputy Editor of the Journal of Hospital Medicine. Kaiser Oakland residents gain proficiency in Lean Methodologies to improve performance, a process we call Patient Care Improvement Systems. Our fully integrated electronic care system enhances our ability to coordinate care across the continuum from the clinic to the emergency room, hospital, and nursing homes. A recent example is the Advanced Alert Management system, a behind-the-scenes risk calculator which harnesses the data in the electronic medical record to identify patients at risk for decompensation before they deteriorate and notifies the health care team. Components of this Pathway include:
- Advanced Bedside Ultrasound
- Co-management of surgical patients on the Hospitalist-Orthopedics, Hospitalist-Spine, Podiatry, Surgery, Head & Neck Surgery, and OB/GYN services.
- Working with Medical Center leadership on Hospital committees such as Patient Safety, Quality Improvement, and Infection Control.
- Hospital-based QI projects to place residents “behind-the-scenes” with key medical center programs and committees
- Advanced critical care and inpatient sub-specialty rotations
- Interviews with the key physician leaders at Kaiser
- Distinction in Hospital Medicine Pathway: while residents may be able to do any of these experiences during residency, to fulfill criteria for the ‘Distinction in Hospital Medicine designation a resident completes the KORE Hospitalist rotation; advanced training in one or more areas (e.g., inpatient POCUS, advanced surgical co-management, or perioperative medicine); and a mentored research, QI, or educational project in Hospital Medicine
Distinction in Medical Education Pathway
Mentor: Dr. Tom Baudendistel, MD
All physicians are teachers, and if you have a special interest in a future that includes Medical Education, this may be the pathway for you! This pathway includes electives led by the Program Director to enhance residents-as-teachers skills and promote resident careers in medical education. Components of this Pathway include:
- Formal didactics in education: learn how to teach clinical reasoning (and help learners who struggle in this area); how to provide feedback; how to deliver high-quality presentations ranging from oral case presentations, “chalk talks”, large-group and small-group teaching; how to promote retention in learners; how to use gamification to enhance small-group learning
- Directly observed teaching opportunities: armed with the knowledge on best practices, you’ll then have many chances to apply what you’ve learned through teaching student reports, leading sessions for the UCSF KLIC students, delivering Journal Club and Clinical Problem-Solving conferences—all observed by faculty who provide you with detailed feedback
- Scholarly opportunities in Medical Education: work with Program Director Dr. Baudendistel and other faculty on a variety of options from Educational Innovations to original research to chapters in books (such as Dr. B’s First Aid for the Internal Medicine Boards) or designing novel curricula. Residents have presented work at national meetings, including Jose Davila’s award-winning innovation poster at the Innovations in Medical Education Conference at USC and Andrea Chai’s workshop on Game-Based Learning in Medical Education.
- UCSF’s Clinical Teaching Scholars Program: all residents in this pathway can complete the requirements of the UCSF Certification in Clinical Teaching by attending the clinical Teaching workshops co-sponsored by Kaiser Oakland and UCSF faculty
Distinction in Medical Humanities Pathway
Mentor: Dr. Somalee Banerjee, MD
You will work with Dr. Banerjee to design a longitudinal medical humanities elective that aligns with your specific medical humanities interest. Your scholarly or QI work will be designed during early exploration time during this elective, and you will coordinate one residency community activity which emphasizes narrative medicine or art in medicine.
Examples of QI or scholarly work previously done
- Quality improvement project in palliative medicine using narrative medicine techniques to explore clinician grief processing
- Systematic review of visual art and its use in improving clinician burnout
Examples of Community Activity
- Create a resident art and paint night
- Volunteer with an adult day program working with artists with disabilities
- Create a resident poetry slam