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We are pleased to announce that the next class of Internal Medicine Resident Physicians have matched to Baptist Memorial Hospital – North Mississippi. The 12 trainees who will make up the third class will join the current 24 Resident Physicians and bring the program to the full complement of 36 resident physicians. The group will begin their three years of training in July 2023 following a two-week orientation period. A full class announcement will be forthcoming.

Throughout the recruitment process, program leadership focused on the whole candidate, with the most important criteria being “mission fit,” including applicants who are natives of the Mid-South, were educated in the area, have a strong connection to loved ones in Mississippi or the Mid-South, and those who have a strong desire to live in and serve the state and region after training.  Each of the 12 incoming resident physicians possesses their own unique combination of characteristics and connections that made them an ideal candidate to train at Baptist North Mississippi.

The recruitment season wrapped up on March 1, 2023, with the certification of the final rank order list in The National Resident Matching Program’s Main Residency Match. Through the process, a dynamic group of candidates from across the globe shared their life stories, motivation for pursuing medicine, and professional aspirations. Nearly all of the candidates traveled in person to Oxford, MS, to tour the community and BMH-NM facilities. All 12 positions were filled in the Main Residency Match.

The program’s mission remains to train clinically and procedurally competent physicians in the specialty of Internal Medicine who will provide high quality, safe, cost-effective, and patient/family-centered care for adults in North Mississippi, upholding the greater Baptist Memorial Health Care mission of “Healing, Preaching and Teaching.”

Preparations for the new academic year are underway with plans to expand Graduate Medical Education's impact and footprint at Baptist Memorial Hospital - North Mississippi and beyond. With the full complement of 36 resident physicians bringing it to its mature size, program stakeholders aspire to elevate the standard of patient care and access to care in the hospital and community.

Three inpatient teams

The most significant growth will happen on the inpatient academic Hospitalist service. Beginning Monday, July 3, 2023, three teams rather than one will offer inpatient care.

The first team will be staffed in the same model as this past academic year’s service, with a core faculty attending physician, an upper level resident physician, and two interns. These teams will alternate between 7 days of inpatient service, followed by Monday – Friday at the BMG – Oxford Internal Medicine clinic, then repeat that cycle beginning the following Monday for the rotation block. During the first half of the academic year, PGY3s will serve as the upper level resident on the service, and in the latter half of the year, PGY2s will step in as the upper levels. 

The second pairing will be exclusively a Hospitalist attending working directly with PGY2 resident physicians, with weekend cross-coverage provided by other PGY2s on a subspecialty rotation during that block. 

Finally, a PGY3 inpatient service will provide the trainees who are near completion of the program more of a true feel of practicing as an independent Hospitalist. Current Hospitalists will oversee the service, but the upper levels will work with more indirect supervision through their own patient list and a traditional 7 on, 7 off schedule. 

Procedures team 

Another key addition will be a procedures team who will be able to assist with any IV access issues on any day of the week. They will be signed into Voalte for easy communication from physicians and nursing staff. We anticipate expanding the capabilities of this team to include other Internal Medicine-based procedures.

Additional experiences 

Additions to the PGY1 schedule include a required Wound Care rotation, focused case management experience on the intern Acute Rehabilitation Unit and Skilled Nursing Facility rotation, as well as built-in palliative care experiences. 

Block 7 that spans from mid-December 2023 to mid-January 2024 will remain as a round robin model, with shorter elective experiences considered once all essential services are covered. 

The Infectious Disease rotation in the PGY3 year will be at BMH-NM with telesupervision by physicians from Mid-South Infectious Disease Associates in Memphis, TN. 

Away rotations 

Three required rotations will take resident physicians away from Oxford, MS. Second-year trainees will continue to complete their Endocrinology rotation at the Baptist Medical Group Endocrine Clinic in Southaven, MS. PGY3 trainees will travel to Baptist Memorial Hospital – DeSoto for their gastroenterology rotation, and to Memphis for their geriatric rotation. 

Didactics 

In didactics, a slight scheduling change is in store, with two back-to-back 45-minute events beginning at 12:00 p.m. and running through 1:30 p.m. Tuesday – Thursday and only one 45-minute session starting at 12:00 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays. 

A Simulation / POCUS session will be held each week in the new academic year, doubling the frequency in that area of education. Recurring monthly lectures will continue to be held include Journal Club; Quality and Safety; Imaging; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Workshops; Morbidity and Mortality, and Root-Cause Analysis, as well as weekly MKSAP and Deep Dive lectures and Chief Resident Board Review. Case presentations will occur Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday each week, which adds one additional conference of this type from last year. 

Educational resources 

Slight adjustments will be made in resources available to resident and faculty physicians, as well. Yale ambulatory curriculum will now be used rather than the previous Johns Hopkins offerings and will be guided by ambulatory faculty. The New England Journal of Medicine Knowledge Plus modules and Resident 360 access will continue to be utilized by the PGY2 and PGY3 classes. For specific rotations, faculty leads are encouraged to request any textbooks or resources they deem necessary from the program. 

Any additional adjustments or updates for next year will continue to be communicated as plans are solidified. As always, faculty feedback and guidance is welcomed and appreciated. 

The next step in the accreditation process is upon the Internal Medicine residency program at Baptist North Mississippi. In January 2021, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) awarded initial accreditation to establish the training program and paved the way for welcoming the first two classes of resident physicians to Oxford, MS, in 2021 and 2022. 

The ACGME sets the standards for U.S. graduate medical education programs and their sponsoring institutions and awards accreditation based on a voluntary evaluation and review process following published common and specialty-specific standards. In the 2021-2022 academic year, there were approximately 12,740 residency and fellowship programs for 182 specialties and subspecialties in the U.S. A Review Committee oversees the accreditation process and is comprised of specialty experts that provide peer evaluation of sponsoring institutions and residency and fellowship programs. 

These site visits ensure adherence with applicable institutional and program requirements. Typically, the ACGME site reviewer will spend time speaking with a broad range of program participants, including institutional officials, the program director, associate program directors, core faculty members, resident physicians, and the program coordinator, in order to garner a clear view of the training environment from multiple perspectives. 

After initial accreditation is conferred on a program, a follow-up review is required within 2 to 3 years as a final step to continued accreditation. The Internal Medicine program at Baptist North Mississippi has been notified by the ACGME that this study will be scheduled between now and March 1, 2023. In preparation for the date, a gap analysis is underway to identify any potential areas of noncompliance, and an internal review was conducted as a mock site review.

Upon the completion of a successful site review, the ACGME representative will provide a report to the ACGME Review Committee who will then make the final decision of whether to award continued accreditation status to the program. This determination is expected in the Spring of 2023.