Internal Medicine Residency - Clinician Educator & Primary Care Pathways

Internal Medicine Residency

Clinician Educator Pathway

The Clinician-Educator Pathway (CEP) is a longitudinal, mentored track designed to prepare residents for careers in academic medicine. Through interactive didactics, hands-on teaching, guided scholarship, and leadership development, residents gain the skills to become outstanding clinician-educators. The CEP emphasizes five core pillars: clinical excellence, teaching expertise, mentorship, educational scholarship, and administrative leadership. CEP residents engage in structured workshops, peer and faculty mentorship, a required medical education elective, and completion of a scholarly project. Graduates are awarded Distinction in Medical Education upon fulfilling the program’s comprehensive milestones. Applications are open to PGY-1 residents with a passion for teaching. The CEP fosters a vibrant community of future medical educators committed to shaping the next generation of learners in Hawaiʻi and beyond.

Primary Care Pathway

The Primary Care Pathway (PCP) is a longitudinal, mentored track designed to prepare residents for careers in ambulatory medicine. Residents in the PCP complete a curriculum with enhanced outpatient experiences, including required selectives in subspecialties with strong ambulatory relevance (such as pulmonology, endocrinology, and dermatology), as well as a dedicated rural health rotation on a neighbor island that broadens their perspective on healthcare delivery across diverse practice settings. Applications are open to PGY-1 residents with a passion for primary care or subspecialties that emphasize ambulatory practice.

Curriculum

Academic Structure

Ambulatory care is emphasized throughout residency and includes:

• Three years of Continuity Clinic at one of the following sites: Queen Emma Clinics (QEC), Queen’s University Medical Group (QUMG), Pearl City Medical Associates (PCMA), and various private physician offices
• Eight weeks of ambulatory and subspecialty medicine training at the VA Medical Center

Inpatient general medicine training occurs over three years and includes:

• Twenty-four weeks of inpatient medicine during the PGY 1 year, sixteen weeks during the PGY 2 year and sixteen weeks in the PGY 3 year
• Rotations at Queen’s Medical Center (QMC) and Kuakini Medical Center (KMC)
• Diverse patient population reflective of our Pacific Rim island heritage
• Experience in both university and community-based models of care
• Dedicated in-house clinician educators who are actively involved in resident and student education on a daily basis

Subspecialty focused medicine training takes place during the PGY 2 and PGY 3 years and includes:

• Required rotations in: cardiology, nephrology, neurology, critical care, geriatrics and oncology; many of which offer inpatient and outpatient experience
• A wide variety of electives are available within our Program, on the neighbor islands of Hawai‘i, on the mainland and in Pacific Rim countries

Research

• Faculty are engaged in nationally and locally sponsored research in the basic sciences, clinical trials, health care delivery and medical education
• Categorical residents are encouraged to complete a scholarly project in their area of interest over three years; many residents complete more than one project to increase their choices of competitive fellowships
• Residents may do a research elective to complete the majority of the project during that time
• Funds are available for residents’ research efforts
• Annual awards are given to recognize outstanding research achievements

Rotation Schedule

The academic calendar runs from July 1st to June 30th and consists of thirteen 28-day blocks; however, the first and last block may be longer or shorter than 28 days.  Vacation weeks are scheduled consecutively. Starting in the 2023 – 2024 academic year, our program transitioned to an X+Y scheduling model, specifically a 4+2 format.

Major Participating Sites

The Queens Medical Center

The Queen’s Medical Center (QMC) is a 500-bed tertiary care hospital and the State’s only Level 1 Trauma Center. It houses dedicated intensive care units for medical, neurology, surgical/trauma, and cardiovascular patients. QMC serves a diverse patient population, spanning all ages, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, and a wide range of clinical conditions.

The Queen Emma Clinic (QEC), located on the ground level of QMC, is a major ambulatory teaching site. Our residents complete required rotations at QMC, including Inpatient Medicine, Cardiology Selective, Oncology Selective, and MICU. In addition, numerous subspecialty inpatient and outpatient electives are offered at QMC and across the three associated Queen’s Physicians Office Buildings (POB I, II, and III).

In July 2010, the Cardiovascular Fellowship located at QMC was accredited by the ACGME. The Fellowship is able to accept four new fellows per year.

Kuakini Medical Center Kuakini Medical Center

Kuakini Medical Center (KMC) is a full-service acute care hospital and home to our Geriatrics training program. The patient population is predominantly geriatric, with medical conditions typical of a community hospital setting. KMC hosts four general inpatient medicine teams. Each team consists of one intern and one upper-level resident, supervised by Medical Team Care physicians, with patients located on general medical floors or in the intensive care unit.

Veterans Affairs Pacific Islands Health Care System

Categorical residents spend a total of eight weeks, and Preliminary residents spend four weeks at the VA clinics during residency. Most of this time is dedicated to subspecialty clinics such as Endocrinology, Nephrology, Rheumatology, and Neurology. In addition, residents spend two half-days per week in the Primary Care walk-in clinics.

Straub Clinic and Hospital

The Straub Clinic and Hospital, Honolulu has a 16-bed mixed specialty ICU, where Categorical Level 1 residents complete a required Critical Care Medicine rotation. Residents work with Aloha Critical Care Associates and Straub intensivists. Residents also have choices of subspecialty outpatient and inpatient electives at Straub.

Ambulatory Clinics

The Queen Emma Clinics

The Queen Emma Clinics (QEC), located at The Queen’s Medical Center, Manamana campus in urban Honolulu, provides primary care services to some of the state’s most vulnerable patient populations. It also serves as one of the primary ambulatory teaching sites for the University of Hawai‘i Internal Medicine Residency Program (UHIMRP).

Founded in 1947, QEC prides itself on serving the mission of its Ali‘i founders to provide quality health care in perpetuity to improve the well-being of Native Hawaiians and all the people of Hawai‘i. Residents work alongside a multidisciplinary team including social workers, pharmacists, nurses, and primary care physicians while caring for patients with multiple chronic medical conditions and complex psychosocial needs.

Please see the Queen Emma Clinics website for more details.

Queen’s University Medical Group Primary Care

The Queen’s University Medical Group Primary Care clinic serves as the principal Continuity Clinic training site for Primary Care Pathway residents.

Pearl City Medical Associates (PCMA)

Founded in 1957, PCMA is a primary care group practice with teaching affiliations with the University of Hawai‘i John A. Burns School of Medicine. Located in Waimalu of Central Oahu, PCMA offers a unique experience into a successful private practice with diverse patients representing a cross-section of Hawai‘i’s general population.

Waikiki Health Center

Waikiki Health Center is a private nonprofit federally-qualified community health center which provides medical and social services to people from all walks of life, representing a broad range of economic levels, cultural backgrounds, and medical needs.