Message from the Program Director

We offer a welcoming and supportive environment rich in cameraderie, mentorship and opportunity.

We train the next generation of independent physicians to become leaders in health care, research, education and community service. Whether you prefer the primary care pathway, aim to become a hospitalist or choose a subspecialty, our program will provide excellent opportunities for you.

How do we do all of this? We partner with four major academic hospitals: Erie County Medical Center, Buffalo General Medical Center, the Buffalo VA Medical Center and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Each site provides you with a distinctive perspective, giving you indispensable opportunities to care for a diverse patient population with a multiplicity of complex and challenging diseases.

In our residency, you’ll experience attentive mentorship. From day one, we’ll connect you with a faculty mentor with whom you’ll work closely for three years. Once you begin to consider career planning, you will also be paired with a specialty, hospitalist or primary care mentor. Near-peer mentorship is available through our program’s Big Brother Big Sister Program.

Many of our faculty members conduct groundbreaking research, secure significant grants and maintain respectable publication records — and they are serious about helping you succeed. As a result, our residents have received accolades for oral and poster presentations of research and scholarly activities.

Our residency also offers individualized training through our pathways for residents interested in careers in geriatrics or medical education. 

Our clinics and teaching services are staffed by a group of enthusiastic, knowledgeable medical educators who have completed robust faculty development programs locally and nationally — including training experiences from our Medical Education and Educational Research Institute, our Jacobs Educator Excellence Program (JEEP),  from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the Academic Hospitalist Academy and the Stanford Faculty Development Center for Medical Teachers.

Your ambulatory week is on a 4+1 model that alternates traditional rotations with weeklong ambulatory blocks. It is a comprehensive experience in primary care, population health, quality improvement, evidence-based medicine and telemedicine — with one half day dedicated to our ambulatory curriculum education series (ACES) as protected educational time.

Our robust elective experiences, such as Research Elective, Home-based Primary Care and Residents as Educators, allow you to tailor your residency training to your interests and needs.

Participation in our Internal Medicine Resident Committee and subcommittee structure allows for unique expereiences in program administration, physician wellness, community outreach and advocacy, health equity, curriculum development, quality improvement and research.

Our curriculum, largely through our Academic Half Day, Morning Report, and Ambulatory Curriculum Education Series, is innovative, comprehensive, focuses on active learning and ensures that you’ll develop into a competent, well-rounded practitioner. In addition to core curriculum delivery, we offer a robust transitions curriculum, workshops on point-of-care-ultrasound and in our simulation center, gamified board review and much more!

As a resident in our program, you’ll experience our quality improvement, research and scientific literacy curricula, which results in better quality of care for our patients while giving you opportunities to complete projects that you can present locally and nationally.

We promote diversity, equity and inclusion through our innovative and learner-centered curriculum and health equity initiatives. You will be granted protected time to partake in advocacy and community outreach through a number of voluntary events.

In our program, our residents’ voices truly matter. We believe in shared governance and ensuring our residents are integrally involved in all programmatic initiatives and changes. This is accomplished in a multitude of ways including through our chief residents, committee and subcommittee structure, quarterly town hall meetings, internal programmatic surveys and focus groups.

We care about providing top-quality training, but more than that, we are dedicated to properly caring for our residents’ personal well-being. Our wellness committee provides peer support programs, wellness resources, mindfulness activities, organizes programmatic events, retreats and team building exercises.

I invite you to join our team on this rewarding educational journey. We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Alysia V. Kwiatkowski, DO
Program Director