Internal Medicine
Welcome to the Internal Medicine Residency
Letter from the Director
Internal Medicine Residency Spokane is, as our residents say, “a hidden gem.” This vibrant community has a little bit for everyone—unique community activities such as Bloomsday and Hoopfest, art galleries, an amazing symphony, award-winning wineries, breweries, and restaurants—all surrounded by an immense park system and incredible lakes and mountains. It is no surprise that many of our graduates choose to stay in Spokane or return after their fellowship training.
Collegiality and collaboration are the name of the game here; we value relationships. Residents have longitudinal relationships with their assigned faculty advisor as well as other core faculty and community mentors. We work closely with our residency colleagues, partnering together for education, wellness, QI, and patient care. Our interdisciplinary colleagues are an essential part of our team in both clinic and hospital. We have long-standing relationships with 3 regional medical schools; residents can refine their teaching skills with the medical students who work with us.
We have 10 residents/year as well as 2 clinician-teacher fellows. We focus on both breadth and depth of training providing the opportunity for residents to personalize their education to their medical interests while developing a strong foundation in general internal medicine. Our residents have multiple opportunities to enrich their education; some of these include POCUS, our new primary care track, and a formal teaching curriculum. Our graduates go on to become hospitalists, primary care physicians, subspecialists, and faculty. We pride ourselves in helping our learners develop skills for life-long, self-directed learning.
If you are looking for a friendly and rigorous residency where you can tailor your training to meet your future career goals, Spokane is the place for you. Come for a visit—you will be warmly welcomed.
Dr. Amy Eddy, Program Director, Internal Medicine Residency Spokane
Navigator
Mission statement
An Academic Community-based Program
The smaller size of the IMRS program allows us to tailor your education and make sure that we address your needs. The Spokane setting allows for a depth and breadth of experience that rivals university hospitals. The IMRS:
- Lives the mission of providing care for the poor and vulnerable
- Encourages rigorous scholarship with ownership and responsibility for clinical decision-making
- Uses case-based teaching as much as possible
- Encourages residents to provide much of the teaching content for conferences and journal clubs to facilitate adult learning
- Mentors each resident as an individual
- Provides easy access to faculty – day or night
- Provides ample opportunities for procedures (no competition from fellows) and dedicated ultrasound training
- Learn with faculty whose emphasis is direct patient care and lifelong learning
- Promotes the use of humanities and humor in teaching
- Strives to provide a balanced work-life dynamic
- Has an affiliation with University of Washington School of Medicine
Our Patients
Our patients are ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. In addition to a breadth of medical conditions, we care for patients with financial challenges, housing difficulties, legal and social problems. Our patients appreciate the extra time we give them. Many patients have been with our practice for twenty years and proudly share how they have “trained many doctors.”
The Inland Northwest is home to many Native American tribes (Spokane means “Children of the Sun”) and we are proud to provide care for them. In addition, Spokane welcomes many immigrants. Ukrainian, Russian, Marshallese, Arabic, Hindi and Spanish are just a few of the more common languages we hear in our work.
“Spokane has a large catchment covering a population of over 2 million people. This allows us to see and manage disease processes such as HLH, tertiary syphilis and odd presentation fo vasculitis while still having a personal feel of a community residency program”
Graduate Medical Education Policies
The Spokane Teaching Health Clinic and the Internal Medicine Spokane Residency Program have developed several important graduate medical education policies.