Rotations
The TYRP is structured according to both ACGME-I specialty program requirements for graduate medical education in the Transitional Year as well as the licensing requirements of the Singapore Medical Council (SMC). The first 12 months of medical training in Singapore must be in disciplines or departments offering “core skills” that transcend all disciplines. As such, SMC-approved “core skill” rotations must be in Internal Medicine, General Surgery, General Orthopaedic Surgery, Paediatrics or Obstetrics & Gynaecology. Emergency Medicine has recently been added to this list.
In accordance with the above, TYRP rotations are structured as follows:
At least 6 months must be in disciplines that offer fundamental clinical skills. All residents will spend four months in Internal Medicine and 2 months in Emergency Medicine. The two month rotation in EM provides exposure to both Emergency Care and Urgent/Walk-in types of conditions presenting to the NUH ED. An additional 4 months must be spent in either General Surgery or General Orthopaedics, which are the recognized core surgical postings by SMC. Another 2-4 month block may be done in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Paediatrics or Orthopaedics (if not done already as the core surgical posting). Within Internal Medicine the residents spend 2 months on General Medicine wards and 1 month each on two different subspecialty wards. The GenMed experience will ground the resident’s education in common medical conditions requiring acute hospitalization while the SubSpec experience will be based on elective preferences of the resident guided by future educational & career goals. SubSpec elective choices (as approved by the SMC as core medical postings) include Respiratory Medicine, Endocrinology, Nephrology, Gastroenterology and Neurology. These SubSpec wards consist of a diverse patient population and give a broad overview of important yet common medical conditions that typically present to subspecialists (rather than general internists) in Singapore. All rotations are a minimum of 1 month in duration to ensure reasonable continuity of education and patient care.
Resident Postings for 2011
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Curriculum
The TYRP curriculum includes emphasis on the six ACGME-I competency areas through the above clinical rotations, but also through the residency Core Education Program (CEP). The CEP is designed for all PGY1 residents regardless of discipline to address common and fundamental clinical skills in the context of the ACGME-I competencies. Teaching is designed utilizing the experiential learning model and is facilitated by groups of experts drawn from several NUHS departments rather than a single one. The aim is not only to improve graduate medical education, but also to build collegial links between faculty and residents of different programs.
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