RESIDENCY EXPERIENCE
This is Denver EM
Welcome to our Residency Experience! The information contained here is meant to provide a glimpse of the resident experience at our four institutions and highlight the residency priorities of educational excellence, resident wellness, diversity equity and inclusion, mentorship, and scholarship. We approach these priorities with a sense of continuous improvement and innovation.
Wellness and Education
Wellness and Education are as much an integral part of the training program as our rigorous clinical training. Following a highly successful curricular redesign of our educational curriculum, our educational priorities have shifted to integrate more simulation and procedural training (cadaver labs, etc.) into our weekly educational offerings. As you will see first-hand from your Educational Conference Experience, residents and faculty deliver and attend the educational sessions for our residency program. Significant elective time in the PGY2-4 years, (while retaining normal salary and benefits) adds to the ability to pursue and achieve each resident’s educational goals and to foster mentorship in line with those goals.
In terms of wellness, long standing initiatives, such as our Art Chaos, Ethics, and Science (ACES) curriculum, and new initiatives, such as our open mic session entitled True Stories from the Emergency Room, provide
essential opportunities for reflection and community in our residency. Our Wellness Committee has developed a number of recent, resident focused initiatives including a payback-free sick call policy, mental wellbeing coaching resources, a clinical social worker dedicated to resident mental health and wellness, and a Lyft-based free ride service. Residents participation in all of the educational and wellness initiatives within our residency program emphasizes our commitment to resident-centered improvement and innovation in these areas.
Mentorship and Scholarship
Having a Department of Emergency Medicine with over one hundred faculty members allows for a deep bench of faculty with varied interests available for mentorship and scholarship pursuits. Both our department and our residency program maintain several “Tracks” and “Affinity Groups” that mirror the common niches in emergency medicine related to administration, critical care, emergency medical services, education, global health, pediatric emergency medicine, quality and safety, research, toxicology, ultrasound, and wilderness medicine. Some of these tracks sponsor journal club nights covering landmark and cutting-edge research, including discussions with expert faculty members in a relaxed and collegial environment.
Showcasing the depth of expertise of our faculty, our department maintains fellowships in each of these areas with multiple faculty working within these concentration areas to allow for a broad array of mentorship and scholarship options available to residents as part of their residency training. Residents with dedicated accomplishments in an area of interest may be awarded additional elective time in their senior year to pursue their interest. In addition to mentorship via the multiple tracks, all residents are paired with a faculty mentor (assigned in intern year, and resident-selected afterward). These relationships help to guide residents through professional growth as physicians and into optimizing their residency experience so as to achieve their career goals.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
Within the Denver Health Residency in Emergency Medicine, we embrace the diversity of our residents, faculty, staff, and patients by fostering a culture of inclusivity and diversity broadly. Our residency program seeks to reflect the diversity of our surrounding communities so that we may ensure exceptional health care and alleviate healthcare disparities and inequities by having diverse representation in all spheres of practice. With the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee as a lead, we have developed culturally responsive, evidenced-based health care practices and educational programs. We seek to assure the success and retention of our diverse residents through mentorship, modeling, and the support of our emergency medicine community.
