Why Choose Stanford/Kaiser Emergency Medicine?
© 2012 Nicholas Kanaan, MD
by the Residents
- Great people
- Incredible clinical training and diversity of experiences
- The faculty
- Outstanding didactics
- Vast opportunities
- Amazing place to live
- Full/maximum period accreditation from the ACGME since inception in 1991.
- Unique 3+1 format:
- 3 years of formal residency training leading to board eligibility and outstanding clinical skills
- 1 optional additional year for career development
- Fellowships
- Academic experience
- Junior faculty level position
People
- Our residents come from all over the country with diverse interests and perspectives. Many of us believe our fellow residents and the friendships we have forged are the best thing about the Stanford/Kaiser residency.
- It’s never hard to find someone in this group who likes doing something you’re interested in. Active interests of our residents include:
- Biking, swimming, running, triathlons, aviation, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, surfing, guitar, tennis, ultimate Frisbee, golf, barbequing, poker, dancing, going out in the city, and travel to name a few.
- Supportive residency leadership
- Program directors recognized for education, administration, and mentorship. They have been nominated by the residents for several national awards.
- EM faculty member who is also the Wellness Director for the Stanford University School of Medicine.
- Annual 2-day retreat at the beach
- Faculty: Even though they are nationally recognized educators, clinicians, and researchers, everyone is on a first name basis.
© 2009 Nicholas Kanaan, MD
- Mentorship
- Big sibling in each class
- Faculty help with resident presentations
- Advisor program: quarterly meetings, feedback on all presentations.
- Interest groups: faculty and residents with similar interests meet
- Staff: Excellent interactions with nursing staff, consultants, and residents from other services
- Tangible sense of camaraderie and team work
- Customer service retreat at Stanford
Clinical Training
- Three diverse hospital ED settings: tertiary care, community, and county hospital. Rotations from each have been carefully selected and integrated into the program because of the faculty, training, and patient care opportunities. This blend of ED training experiences sets the Stanford/Kaiser program apart and is one of the main reasons why we chose this program.
- Outstanding trauma and procedural experience. We staff two of the four Level I trauma centers of the Bay Area with a combined trauma volume of nearly 5,000 activations per year. This includes the trauma center for the most populous city in the Bay Area (San Jose) and the 10th most populous in the country.
- Trained to excel at handling complex, high acuity, and unusual cases at Stanford a major referral center for the West Coast. These include extensive experience with complex cardiac, surgical, orthopedic, neurological, transplant, oncology, as well as very high acuity pediatric cases.
- Excellent community hospital experience in Kaiser’s highly efficient managed care system. Added benefit of one-on-one attending exposure with graduated responsibility.
- Graduate ready to hit the ground running in any practice environment from a county level I trauma center to a single coverage rural ED or a high powered university hospital.
- Supervision and teaching of medical students from a top medical school and other high caliber residents
- Residency graduates have gone all over the country to become leaders in academic and community practice.
Stanford University Medical School
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Kaiser Santa Clara Medical Center
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Santa Clara Valley Medical Center
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Outstanding clinical teaching faculty
- All three hospitals are staffed with amazing clinician-educators, many of whom are nationally recognized educators and who are invited to teach EM attendings at national and international conferences.
- The faculties of the three Stanford/Kaiser program hospitals have been recruited from a diverse array of emergency residencies ensuring that Stanford/Kaiser residents are exposed to multiple practice styles.
Fun and effective educational opportunities
- Conferences: fun, educational, and informal.
- Curriculum: the conference topics for a month are content based with interactive directed reading to facilitate learning.
- Building on the strengths of training at a top teaching hospital, we often invite faculty from other departments to comment on cases or lecture on topics of mutual interest.
- Monthly EM/ICU conference, EM/Trauma, EM/Peds, and EM/Internal Medicine case conferences done in collaboration with these services.
- Grand rounds speakers from across the country are invited once a month.
- Simulation Stanford is a leader in medical simulation, being the home of the first medical simulation program. Our residency leadership has just secured increased funding for more simulation which we are very excited about.
- High fidelity adult and pediatric simulators create a very realistic educational experience
- Ultrasound
- Orientation 2-day workshop that will teach everything you need to know to get started.
- Ongoing workshops as part of conference curriculum
- Each hospital uses ultrasound in the ED. For example, you will use one of the 4 Sonosites everyday you work in the Stanford ED.
- We have an awesome ultrasound director, Sarah Williams (a graduate of our residency and ultrasound fellowship) and her team (Laleh Gharahbaghian and the Ultrasound Fellow), who will ensure that you are not only ACEP-certified, but use ultrasound for cutting edge applications such as nerve blocks, cardiac and orbital evaluation, and more.
- Cadaver labs
- Become comfortable with thoracostomy tubes/thoracotomies, central lines, lumbar punctures, NG tubes, and catheters before having to do them on real patients.
- Month long orientation
- Bond with fellow interns: volleyball, happy hours, trip to Tahoe, get settled in your new home
- Get brought up to speed with interactive workshops on approach to common ED complaints, EKG and radiology interpretation, procedure labs, ultrasound, ACLS, ATLS, NRP
- Airway lab: Practice fiberoptic intubations, glide scope, bougie, lighted stylet, intubating LMA and other airway devices.
- Journal Club: Once a month we go keep up to date on the literature through informal and informative discussions at an attending’s house or restaurant. Dr. Garmel always manages to pick articles that will somehow change our practice. Joint journal clubs with surgery, internal medicine and pediatrics are highlights.
- Pot-luck dinner and lots of socializing
- Go over topics covered in the monthly modular curriculum led by one of the R3 chief residents.
- Keeps interns more involved in EM while spending time on off-service rotations
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| Dr. Peter Rosen, visiting for Grand Rounds, and the Stanford/Kaiser EM Residency |
- Excellent off-service rotations chosen from the best services of each of the three hospitals
- Learn from outstanding faculty and residents from these top teaching institutions
- Senior directed curriculum: once a month conferences dedicated for the R3’s that focus on timely topics such as job search, financial planning, billing, and practice management
- Research curriculum: Dr. James Quinn, an internationally known EM researcher, who distills the basics of research methodology and stastistics in an ongoing curriculum through all three years integrated into monthly journal club sessions along with Dr. Grant Lipman..
- Electives
- Toxicology, peds anesthesia, EMS, wilderness and international medicine experiences, and anything else under the sun.
- ACEP Conference attendance as an R3. Time and funding are granted for any residentfor committee involvement or presentations.
- AAEM Conference attendance as an R2.
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| Gus Garmel, MD receives the EMRA Mentorship Award at ACEP |
Vast opportunities
- Research
- Full time research director
- Full time research coordinator
- Lane Medical Library: you can access every journal conceivable online, as well as the top EM textbooks.
- Synergistic research collaborations with other departments such as: Trauma Surgery, Cardiology, Pediatrics, Neurology, and Health Services Research.
- Access to the resources of the Kaiser research unit in Oakland and the Northern California Database. You pose a question and the statisticians will help you crunch the numbers.
- Examples of recent resident projects include:
- Patient and provider perspectives on personal electronic medical records on emergency care
- National survey of ED directors on priorities for preventive health services
- The correlation between measuring internal jugular diameter by ultrasound for estimating central venous pressure
- Evaluation of an ultrasensitive point of care troponin test
- Evaluation of a measure of thigh diameter and length for estimating weight of ED patients
- Study of national trends in reimbursement rates for emergency services
- Evaluation of “layperson” provision and utilization of emergency services
- Medical Education
- Ample opportunities to teach in medical students from one of the best med schools in the country, as well as EMS, and nursing staff.
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- International
- Active projects in India, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, Nepal, and Guatemala.
- For example, Dr. Mahadevan (“Maha”) is helping to roll out a national emergency medicine training initiative in India.
- Kelly Murphy makes annual missions to Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, & Niger ("Sahara Relief") and provides basic health care for a substantial rural population with no other access to care. R2's & R3’s are always invited to come. A new resident project coordinator is needed annually.
- Work at the base camp of Mount Everest in Nepal
- Work in rural hospital ED in Guatemala and provide training to local medical staff
- Residents have served as expediton doctors to places such as Africa and Mongolia
- Maha oversees an international EM fellowship, facilitating more opportunities for interested residents.
- Stanford Medical Center offers a monthly seminar for all residents intrerested in Global Health
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- Community Service
- Resident initiated projects have been initiated that fulfill the administrative and educational project requirement. For example, one resident developed a fall prevention program that sends an occupational therapist to make a home visit for patients that have been in the ED for a preventable fall.
- Administrative
- Access to the medical directors of three different emergency departments
- By completing an administrative project you will hone skills that will increase your desirability in the job market.
- Wilderness Medicine
- This residency has the most robust faculty in the country, and numerous opportunities in wilderness medicine.
- Travel to Nepal to conduct research on Mt. Everest’s base camp
- Learn from Paul Auerbach, author of the field’s leading text book, "Wilderness Medicine"
- Help Bob Norris develop a WHO snakebite care program in India, where more than 45,000 people die from snake bites each year
- With an active fellowship, there are always further opportunities for involvement
- Ultrasound
- Sarah Williams and Laleh Gharahbaghian run the ultrasound fellowship and have a very competitive ultrasound program. Residents learn from them, the Fellow, and the Stanford EM faculty who use ultrasound frquently.
- Cardiovascular Medicine
- Don Schreiber directs a cardiovascular fellowship at Stanford creating many opportunities for residents to get further training and research experience in cardiovascular emergencies. From PE and Acute MI research to cardiac ultrasound and non-invasive cardiac testing, the sky is the limit.
- Many residents have coordinated projects with some of Stanford’s internationally renowned cardiologists
- EMS
- Greg Gilbert directs an EMS fellowship that is closely coordinated with the Santa Clara County EMS which covers the 10th most populous metropolitan areas in the country.
- A Stanford Life Flight elective is available for anyone interested in aeromedical medicine.
- Sports Medicine
- Dan Garza, a Stanford/Kaiser grad and current faculty member, helps direct the Sports Medicine program at Stanford, the top Division I Athletic program in the country. He is also the Chief Medical Physician/team doctor for the San Francisco 49ers.
- Leroy Sims, a Sports Medicine fellow, is the new medical director for the NBA's Golden State Warriors.
- Health Services Research
- Residents have made use of the faculty resources available in the renowned Health Services Department at Stanford resulting in publications published in top health policy journals. Residents also have access to the vast array of public and community health projects through the Kaiser Permanente system.
- EM residents can also take the outstanding monthly seminar offered by the hospital called “Health Care Policy, Economics, and Finance for Resident Physicians.” The seminar brings in leaders in the health care sector in the Bay Area.
Amazing place to live
© 2000 Terri van der Vlugt
- Palo Alto is a vibrant and fun town with great restaurants, cafes, shopping, and nightlife.
- The Stanford Advantage:
- Free access to amazing campus athletic facilities from the top collegiate athletic program in the country.
- You will come across tons of interesting, smart, and motivated people from Stanford’s excellent grad schools and the innovative professional population living in Silicon Valley
- Heaven on earth for outdoor enthusiasts: hundreds of running and bike trails, 15 minutes from world class mountain biking, 50 minutes from world class surfing, 3 _ hours to world class skiing in Lake Tahoe, and 4 hours away from pristine Yosemite. The Bay also affords opportunities for sailing, kite surfing, and windsurfing.
- 60 + vineyards and wineries within 30 miles in the Santa Cruz mountains and 500+ vineyards and wineries 1hr 45 min away in Napa and Sonoma.
- San Francisco is nearby with abundant restaurants, museums, live performances, and nightlife.
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Additional perks
- $3,000 Stanford Housestaff moving stipend
- $2,000 Stanford Housestaff yearly educational stipend
- $500 book allowance
- $1,000 food, parking and gas allowance
- Pay for:
- USMLE Step 3 (or equivalent)
- California licensure and renewals
- DEA certificate and renewals
- Travel to conferences when presenting papers or participating in committee work.
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