The majority of noon conference topics fit under this curriculum. We emphasize having a curriculum that is interactive and case based. We cover topics from all subspecialties of internal medicine (and beyond) that are relevant for general internists and primary care doctors.

Highlights from this series include:

• The “Emergencies” lectures: Infectious disease emergencies, endocrine emergencies, dermatologic emergencies, and psychiatric emergencies to name a few
• “Pancreatic cystic lesions”
• “Buprenorphine 101”
• “Breast cancer for the internist”
• There are also disease focused talks, like “Acute pancreatitis” and “Chronic Obstrucive Pulmonary Disease” other important talks like that

The Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS Curriculum) is a longitudinal, integrated, and progressive learning experience that teaches bedside ultrasonography and how it can be utilized in patient care.  This curriculum is taught during the academic half day of the Y-week.  This curriculum focuses on hands-on scanning of simulated patients with in-person faculty mentors who provide real-time feedback.

Here are some example modules:

The Quality Improvement curriculum at the University of Iowa is an integrated curriculum that incorporates workshops during the academic half day of the Y week and a year-long team-based quality improvement project designed and implemented by the Y week cohorts.

University of Iowa Health Care hosts an annual Quality and Safety Symposium in which our resident teams are given the opportunity, encouragement, resources, and mentorship to submit and present their projects.  After this, many teams submit their projects to large regional and national meetings.

Since the development of our curriculum we have had…

• 50+ resident led QI Projects
• 30+ resident led QI Projects presented at our local Quality and Safety Symposium
• 25 resdient teams presented oral presentation or posters at SGIM Midwest Regional Meeting
• 7 resident teams presented posters at SGIM National Meeting

Our groundbreaking curriculum was published in the Journal of Graduate medical Education.

Example QI projects:

• Naloxone prescription for opioid use disorder
• Hepatitis C screening
• Patient-Provider Communication – AVS summary use at the VA
• SGLT2 prescription for CKD

One of the highlights of our program’s curricula is the emphasis on clinical reasoning.  Clinical reasoning is a unifying theme of all that we teach here at the University of Iowa.  But clinical reasoning takes the spotlight during clinical reasoning week, where Dr. Suneja (our program director) and company take a deep dive into the inner workings of the thought processes of master clinicians.  We discuss the nuts and bolts of problem representation and how to form an effective assessment.  We then use that problem representation and show how that interacts with frameworks, which ultimately lead to a differential diagnosis.  We also discuss cognitive bias and how clinicians are continuously learning and incorporate this new information into their thought processes.

Topics covered include

• “Clinical Reasoning: Thinking of blinking”
• “Speaking the same language and steps to clinical reasoning”
• “Clinical Reasoning: Novice to Expert”

Additionally, the primary focus of Morning Report, Master Clinician Rounds, Framework Friday’s, and Master Clinician Mystery Case series is clinical reasoning.  All of these experiences work together to develop our residents clinical reasoning skills over their three years of residency.

Introduced in 2023, Framework Friday’s are case presentations led by the chief residents during noon conference that dive deeply into a framework and how applies to clinical reasoning related to the case.

Topics covered include:

• Shortness of breath
• Hemolytic anemia
• Microcytic anemia

The Master Clinician Mystery Case Series was developed by residents Luke Morrey and Rachel Genova (’23) as part of a Distinction in Medical Education (link) curricular project.  For this series, a case is presented to a master clinician in aliquots and the attendees break into small groups and discuss their approach to the case before coming back as a group to hear what the master clinician is thinking as the case unfolds.  The emphasis is on reasoning and the correlation between basic pathophysiology and clinical presentation.

Topics covered include:

• Pulmonary-renal syndrome
• Lactic acidosis
• Interstitial Lung Disease

Residents participate in simulations of Rapid Response and Code Blues during the ambulatory curriculum of their Y week.  This is a progressive learning experience with the PGY2s running the simulation, the PGY1s assisting and the PGY3s giving feedback.  This was an addition to the educational opportunities made available to residents during the 2023-2024 academic year and it has been very well received.

Board review is a longitudinal curriculum that occurs during the academic half day of Y weeks and during noon conference in the later part of the year. Additionally, our program facilitates a “Board Review Weekend” at the end of the academic year for graduating residents. These didactic sessions are organized around MKSAP questions and focused on content heavily covered by the ABIM in order to reinforce clinical reasoning, key points, and test taking strategies.

The Teaching Skills Curriculum is a longitudinal, integrated, and progressive workshop-based curriculum that introduces residents to the knowledge base and skill set used when serving in the role of a clinician-educator.  This curriculum is taught during the academic half day of the Y-week.  This curriculum focuses on skills and techniques that would be used to teach medical students while on rotations like creating an effective learning climate, one-minute preceptorship, and chalk-talk 101.

Teaching Skills Curriculum Goals

The wellness curriculum covers a wide spectrum of issues related to wellness.  The talks are selected and organized by the Wellness and Humanities Committee. Some of the favorite talks from this series are the yearly two-part talk on personal finance and the faculty panel on dealing with errors.

Wellness talks during noon conference include:

• “Sleep during residency”
• “Financial wellness” – a 2 part lecture series
• Faculty panel on dealing with errors and patient death
• Our yearly Pumpkin Carving Contest and Holiday party with cookie decoration that happen over noon conference

Introduced in spring of 2023, the purpose of the Health Equity curriculum is to increase residents’ awareness of issues of health equity within medicine and give residents tools to minimize them.  These talks are given during noon conference on a regular interval to increase our residents training in this critically important issue. For residents learning more about health inequities in medicine, we also offer a Distinction in Health Equity as well as clinical experiences in the Free Medical Clinic and LGBTQ clinic.

Talks given in this series include:

• “Health equity and disparity”
• “Stigma and evaluation in substance use”

All second-year residents participate in creating and delivering a noon conference lecture and handout on an educational topic of their choice. Residents are paired with faculty mentors and given feedback.

Talks given by residents include:

• “Alcohol-associated hepatitis”
• “Infective endocarditis: beyond the TEE”
• “Pulmonary Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis”
• “Clinical diagnostic errors”

All third-year residents lead a discussion of a current primary literature in internal medicine or internal medicine subspecialties.  There focus is on critically appraising the study design and evaluating the applicability of these results to patient care.