New research shows how the chief resident position in academic internal medicine residency programs has evolved over the past 20 years, revealing how the position has changed, the types of careers these individuals pursue, and improvement in gender representation. These findings, published this summer by the American Journal of Medicine , stem from a 20-year multicenter study that involved the University of Colorado Internal Medicine Residency Program. CU Department of Medicine faculty member William Turbyfill, MD, was among the study's site investigators.
Turbyfill, who practices in the Veterans Affairs Eastern Colorado Health Care System, is part of a collective of hospitalists who are interested in research throughout the VA. He says the lead author of the study, Tyler J. Albert, MD, recognized there was a lack of research on chief residents despite their important role in medical education.
"We realized this is something no one has really looked at before, prompting us to wonder -; how do we catalog this, and from that, what are the trends we see? What has happened in the past, and what might be happening in the future?" says Turbyfill, an assistant professor in the Division of Hospital Medicine. Site investigators from 22 academically-affiliated internal medicine residency programs across the U.S.
were recruited using the VA Academic Hospitalist Work Group. These investigators created a comprehensive registry of chief residents who served at their residency program betwe.