The Internal Medicine Residency program at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital is a fully accredited program designed to provide a comprehensive experience in clinical internal medicine.
Our goal is to train a complete internist—a humanistic physician with broad medical intellect, clinically competent in case management and procedural skills.
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Hear about our program from the program director and current residents.
Even though we are considered a community program, we have a referral catchment of more than 500,000 lives. Internal medicine residents at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital manage the gamut of the common clinical presentations as well as more complex and unusual pathophysiology.
Residents will gain extensive experience in the performance of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. The ICU rotation exposes residents to cutting-edge use of bedside ultrasound for quick diagnosis supplementation as well as procedural assistance. Residents have the opportunity to perform a variety of procedures early on in the course of their training such as central lines, thoracentesis and paracentesis.
Continuous quality improvement and patient safety are extremely important to us at IU School of Medicine and IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital and residents will be immersed in a culture of patient safety from day one. Residents are encouraged to participate on hospital quality improvement initiatives and committees and are essential in the hospital's LEAN transformation as well.
Residents are expected to participate on institutional “Root Cause Analysis” and program specific “Adverse Event Analysis,” through which they will learn the fundamentals of patient safety. Residents are required to complete a QI or PI project once during their three years and may use the research elective rotation to facilitate completing this requirement.
Residents are involved with research and scholarly activity. They may complete a research rotation during their training with an emphasis on their quality/process improvement project. They may also use this time to work on other research-related endeavors and are always encouraged to publish. Residents are encouraged to join or participate in institutional research trials and are required to participate in the Graduate Medical Education Annual Research Symposium by the end of the PGY-2 year.
The ambulatory experience is broad. The internal medicine clinic, under the direction of Dr. Heidi Lakanen, provides a three-year longitudinal continuity experience for management of ambulatory patients. Experience in a community general internist's office and sports and occupational medicine are also options.
The Internal Medicine Residency has a large number of institutionally-based faculty members. The primary ward medicine experience is supervised by hospital-based general internists with over 50 years of teaching experience across five physicians. Integration of the hospitalist service with medical education has created a large faculty base to enhance residents' supervision and education. The hospital operates a robust 4,500 square foot simulation lab in the outpatient pavilion near the family medicine residency center for simulated patient and procedural experiences and OSCEs.
Our residents strive for academic excellence. All of them participate in the Indiana ACP Chapter’s Annual Scientific meeting poster presentation competition and Doctor’s Dilemma academic competition. We have had numerous residents present posters and place in both the ACP regional and national scientific meetings over the years. Many of our residents and faculty have published in peer-reviewed journals and we have many experienced faculty that are available to assist with manuscript preparation.
Full accreditation by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) virtually guarantees that each resident will develop proficiency in the diagnosis and treatment of adult medical problems.
There is opportunity for the residents to earn additional income. In-house moonlighting and teaching of medical students at every level at the Indiana University School of Medicine–Muncie are examples.
The benefit package includes a $5,000 yearly business expense account to help offset the expenses of textbooks, meetings, moving expenses and housing. Meals (valued at approximately $275 per month) are provided free of charge in the hospital cafeteria and at Subway (in the South Tower). Incoming residents also receive an $8,500 primary care stipend.
IU School of Medicine provides resident physicians with competitive salaries and a generous benefits package that includes comprehensive medical coverage as well as mental health and personal counseling care.
