CPMC Internal Medicine Residency Program
Academic Affiliate of Dartmouth Medical School & UCSF
Our program brings experience, commitment, and a rigorous and balanced approach to training of future physicians. We provide an intensive exposure to the practice of internal medicine and aim to train highly skilled and compassionate physicians in a diverse and supportive environment, fostering growth of the individual physician and their talents.
Program Details
From the Program Director
Maggie J So, M.D., FACP discusses how the residency program will prepare future doctors.
Our Residency Program
The Internal Medicine Residency Program directors give an overview of the CPMC Internal Medicine Residency Program.
Our Team
Meet the team and learn why they chose CPMC Internal Medicine Residency.
Our Research
The CPMC Internal Medicine Department strongly encourages and provides the opportunity for residents to participate in research.
Education Highlights
Residents will learn foundational skills and training in key specialties throughout three years at CPMC.
Salary and Benefits
We offer competitive salary and benefits at CPMC Internal Medicine Residency.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our Program
Our mission is to train excellent clinicians by providing a rigorous curriculum and outstanding education. Additionally, our residents do research and participate in scholarly activities with the support of hospitalist and primary care faculty as well as specialty physicians in other departments. We are therefore an academic community hospital. CPMC is affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco as well as Dartmouth Medical School.
Each intern class is made up of 15 categorical (three-year) positions,11-12 preliminary (one-year) positions, and 3 preliminary-ophthalmology (one-year). The total class size comes to around 59 residents in our Internal Medicine residency program.
San Francisco’s climate, surrounding landscape, and lively atmosphere are what draw people to the city. There is never a dull moment!
For those who like outdoor activities, you can find people surfing, mountain biking, trail running, hiking, and sea kayaking. For those who love to eat, there are hole-in-the-wall restaurants, Michelin star ones, and everything in between. You can find almost any ethnic food in town.
There are abundant local events including street fairs, concerts, theaters, and parades. Of course, one can simply take a deep breath and relax in the Golden Gate Park or by Ocean Beach.
If you desire to go wine tasting, you can easily travel to Sonoma or Napa Valley. The closest ski area is only 3 hours away from San Francisco. The possibilities are endless!
At Sutter Health, our employees are our most important assets, and we are fortunate to have attracted some of the most talented professionals. We strive to provide our employees with a highly comprehensive benefit package and extend these benefits to our residents.
Salary, compensation, and benefits are commensurate to the residents’ current program year.
*Disclaimer: This information does not apply to any employee who is in a collective bargaining unit represented by a recognized labor organization unless otherwise specified in a collective bargaining agreement.
Our mission is to train excellent clinicians by providing a rigorous curriculum and outstanding education. Additionally, our residents do research and participate in scholarly activities with the support of hospitalist and primary care faculty as well as specialty physicians in other departments. We are therefore an academic community hospital. CPMC is affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco as well as Dartmouth Medical School.
The culture here is collegial and nurturing. Our residents work hard in a supportive atmosphere, providing an environment that enables them to succeed and grow. We are a smaller size program of about 14 to 15 residents per class (except the intern class that usually has 14 to 15 categoricals and 14 to 15 preliminaries) so everyone gets to know each other very well. We’re like a big family!
Our hospital is a quaternary referral center that serves the exceptionally diverse local population in San Francisco (drawing from the Tenderloin, Pacific Heights, etc.) and patients who transfer to CPMC from outside hospitals to receive subspecialty care. The patient population is diverse culturally, geographically, and socioeconomically. Given the large catchment area that we have, we see great breadth of cases, from common to unique diseases.
Categorial interns and residents follow an “X+Y” rotation schedule, allowing them to have scheduled primary care continuity clinic blocks between inpatient rotations in a predictable pattern. Categorical interns and residents have 10 weeks of primary care clinic throughout the year, composed of dedicated two-week primary care rotation blocks as well as individual continuity clinic days scheduled during elective/selective rotations.
Categorical interns/residents have their own panel of primary care patients that they follow over their time in residency training.
We have excellent nursing, phlebotomy, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy, and radiology staff. We work very closely with them to provide the best care for our patients.
We use EPIC for the electronic health record.
Absolutely. Our residents are encouraged to start or participate in research projects. Many residents submit abstracts and give poster presentations at Internal Medicine Conferences including the American College of Physicians and Society of General Internal Medicine. Residents have published articles in peer-reviewed journals. We have a Quality Improvement (QI) curriculum built into the primary care rotation as well as a QI elective available for residents who want one on one mentorship on any QI research projects. For those interested in pursuing fellowship, our residents do research in their department of interest.
Our program provides both informal and formal feedback to residents. Interns receive verbal feedback from their residents and attending physicians on a weekly to bi-weekly basis and at the end of a rotation. The same occurs for the residents.
Web-based evaluation forms are provided to both interns/residents and faculty to be completed at the end of each rotation. The program director reviews the web-based feedback provided to interns and residents twice yearly.
Yes! Residents are members of committees for the residency program including the Curriculum, Wellness, and Education Committee. The Chief Residents also hold monthly resident feedback sessions for residents to provide their perspective on how their rotations, education, and experiences are going. CPMC’s program continues to improve year after year largely through the feedback of our residents.
Interns and residents are never scheduled to work shifts that last as long or longer than 24 hours. The longest scheduled shifts are some night calls, which can start at 4:45 pm and end at 7:00 am the next morning, for a total of ~14-15 hours.
- On the medicine rotation, interns cap at 8 patients each and residents cap at 16 patients each.
- On the MICU rotation, the team typically consists of 2 interns and 2 residents. The entire team caps at 12 patients. The ICU team can overcap if there are unstable floor patients who need ICU level care.
- On the Cardiology rotation, the team typically consists of 1 intern and 1 resident. The team caps at 7 telemetry patients. There is no CCU cap.
- On the Hematology-Oncology rotation (a single-resident service), the resident caps at 12 patients.
For Categorical Applicants
Yes! Our residents have been successful in matching into competitive fellowships. In the last few years, we have had residents go into Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Hematology Oncology, Pulmonary Critical Care, Infectious Disease, Endocrinology, Rheumatology, Nephrology, Geriatrics, and Allergy/Immunology.
Some institutions where people have matched to include Stanford, UCSF, UCSD, Olive View-UCLA, UCLA, University of Pennsylvania, OHSU, University of Southern California, Loma Linda University, UMichigan, University of Kansas Medical Center, and CPMC.
CPMC has its own fellowship programs in Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Pulmonary and Critical Care, Endocrinology, and Hematology and Oncology.
Residents have been successful in finding primary care and hospitalist jobs after completing residency. For primary care, graduates have found jobs with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation, Menlo Medical Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, and more. For hospitalist medicine, graduates have found jobs at CPMC at our various campuses, Kaiser Permanente, Santa Clara Valley, Sutter Mills-Peninsula, and more.
Our program director and associate program directors provide guidance and mentorship to all applications in the job search process, which includes workshops to review your CV and mock interviews.
CPMC graduates have a great track record for passing the boards. We have a 96% passage rate over the last 5 years. Our program has a board review prep session hosted by in-house attendings and fellows in the Spring that is available to all residents. Additionally, we provide up to $2000 during the R3 year to purchase a board review course of your choosing.
For Preliminary Applicants
Categorical and preliminary interns are treated the same at our program and held to the same standards and expectations. The exception that they are not expected to maintain a continuity clinic (a Y block of outpatient clinic) and instead have more elective time. The preliminary interns rotate through the same inpatient rotations and at the end of their intern year, are extremely prepared for subspecialty training as they have a solid foundation in general internal medicine. We set our preliminary interns up for success as they transition to the next step in their training.
Contact Us
Program Coordinator
Taneesha Lewis
MedEd@sutterhealth.org
Program Director
Maggie So, M.D.
MedEd@sutterhealth.org
Follow us on Instagram @cpmcimresidency