Curriculum Overview

Residents must be able to provide patient care that is compassionate, appropriate, and effective for the treatment of health problems and the promotion of health.

Residents must demonstrate knowledge of established and evolving biomedical, clinical, epidemiological and social-behavioral sciences, as well as the application of this knowledge to patient care.

Residents must demonstrate the ability to investigate and evaluation their care of patients, to appraise and assimilate scientific evidence, and to continuously improve patient care based on constant self-evaluation and lifelong learning.  Residents are expected to develop skills and habits to be able to meet the following goals:

• Identify strengths, deficiencies, and limits in one’s knowledge and expertise;
• Set learning and improvement goals;
• Identify and perform appropriate learning activities;
• Systematically analyze practice using quality improvement methods, and implement changes with  the goal of practice improvement;
• Incorporate formative evaluation feedback into daily practice;
• Locate, appraise, and assimilate evidence from scientific studies related to their patients’ health problems;
• Use information technology to optimize learning; and, participate in the education of patients, families, students, residents and other health professionals.

Residents must demonstrate interpersonal and communication skills that result in the effective exchange of information and collaboration with patients, their families, and health professionals.  Residents are expected to:

• Communicate effectively with patients, families, and the public, as appropriate, across a broad range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds;
• Communicate effectively with physicians, other health professionals, and health related agencies;
• Work effectively as a member leader of a health care team or other professional group;
• Act in a consultative role to other physicians and health professionals; and,
• Maintain comprehensive, timely, and legible medical records, if applicable.

Residents must demonstrate a commitment to carrying out professional responsibilities and an adherence to ethical principles.  Residents are expected to demonstrate:

• Compassion, integrity, and respect for others;
• Responsiveness to patient needs that supersedes self-interest;
• Respect for patient privacy and autonomy;
• Accountability to patients, society and the profession; and,
• Sensitivity and responsiveness to a diverse patient population, including but not limited to diversity in gender, age, culture, race, religion, disabilities, and sexual orientation.

Residents must demonstrate an awareness of and responsiveness to the larger context and system of health care, as well as the ability to call effectively on other resources in the system to provide optimal health care.  Residents are expected to:

• Work effectively in various health care delivery settings and systems relevant to their clinical specialty;
• Coordinate patient care within the health care system relevant to their clinical specialty;
• Incorporate considerations of cost awareness and risk-benefit analysis in patient and/or population-based care as appropriate;
• Advocate for quality patient care and optimal patient care systems;
• Work in inter-professional teams to enhance patient safety and improve patient care quality; participate in identifying system errors and implementing potential systems solutions.

The Resident Case Log System can be selected in this system to view information regarding entry of information, etc. All residents are expected to be assessed by the guidelines established by the ACGME.

In-service exams provide the faculty with information about cognitive advancement in comparison to peers. Residents' participation is mandatory and exceeding 50 percentile of peer group is required. Failure to do so may result in academic probation, suspension of operating room privileges, withdrawal from national, regional or local meetings, or other remediation as determined by the faculty. Mock oral and written exams are administered in addition to the formal in-service exam given in the fall of each year.

Residents will complete two rotations while in their PGY2-5 years. The first service covers HSHS St. John's Hospital and SIU Outpatient clinics.  Residents will cover all SIU inpatients at this hospital and all surgical cases. Residents will be exposed to all urologic subspecialties, including pediatrics, during rotations. Multiple DaVinci Robots are available at this hospital with teaching consoles and simulators to aid in education. New and innovative surgical devices are available at St John's including Rezum and Thulium lasers. The second rotation is at Springfield Memorial Hospital. Residents on this rotation will cover all SIU inpatients at this hospital. All subspecialties of urology except for pediatrics are represented by the surgeries conducted at Springfield Memorial Hospital. Multiple DaVinci robots are available with teaching consoles and simulators to aid education. Thulium, high-watt holmium and UroLift devices are all available at this location. Duties and cases covered at both hospitals by the residents will be commensurate with the level of training and education.

The outpatient clinical experience in which patients are evaluated and managed is necessary for residency training and accreditation and is a key element of urology training. The resident outpatient experience will be one in which the residents are given appropriate responsibilities and an opportunity to make diagnostic and therapeutic decisions concerning the need for surgery. They will have the opportunity for continuity of care outside of the hospital for those patients who have had surgery.

Each resident will have their own personal half-day clinic every week under the supervision of a faculty member. This clinic includes experience in outpatient procedures such as cystoscopy and transrectal ultrasound-guided biopsy of the prostate. Each resident is responsible for the care of patients in their clinics, including promptness in attendance, evaluation and management of clinical problems, follow-up of laboratory and imaging studies, scheduling surgery and follow-up appointments and communication with referring physicians. Specific disease states can be discussed with the representative faculty specialist. Clinics will be organized in a way that residents will be able to follow their patients throughout their residency, giving them the opportunity to manage patients over an extended period of time. The faculty providing oversight may change but resident involvement will be consistent.

Call is shared among residents at about 1:4 although this varies depending on when interns are on service. Interns will typically join the call pool starting their second month of urology. Juniors take the primary calls with a senior or chief resident as back up to assist in seeing consults and covering emergent procedures. Emergency room and unassigned patient call is shared with a private practice group with a 50/50 split. Weekends are divided such to allow for two whole weekends off per month.

The resident is expected to be available when the patient is taken to the operating room. When the patient enters the operating room, the resident should be available to have all imaging readily available, to aid in proper positioning of the patient and to be present during induction of anesthesia. The resident should oversee the prepping and draping of the operating room. In addition, residents who participate as the operating surgeon should have chart documentation of participation and understanding of the preoperative workup.

The chief resident has the option to choose cases on any of the services. Exceptions include resident clinic patients and faculty decisions. The resident assigned to a service where the chief resident is the operating surgeon will be present during the operation and will be responsible for the postoperative care. It is expected that the chief resident will be available to all of the residents for advice and help with the care of all patients, especially in those cases in which he or she served as the operating surgeon.

The residents will be participating in robotic surgery and will become competent in many robotic urologic procedures. As part of the robotic curriculum, residents will be required to create profiles and complete all simulation on the DaVinci robotic simulators prior to participating in robotic procedures. These simulators are located at both St. John's and Springfield Memorial Hospital and are readily available to all residents at all times.

The ACGME has established a required minimum number of cases in each of the index categories and procedures to maintain program accreditation. Therefore, it is important to maintain an accurate accounting of surgical cases. Residents at all levels are required to log their operative cases onto the ACGME website on a daily basis. Failure to do so may result in the suspension of operative room privileges.

Each resident is expected to participate in at least one SIU committee.