Residents will be offered six months of individualized educational experiences through electives, quality improvement and research. Elective rotations can be arranged and tailored based on interests and career aspirations. Unique electives and tracks are summarized below.
New Zealand Rotation: Residents will be offered a unique opportunity to travel to Whakatane, New Zealand to rotate at a 90-bed hospital serving an approximately 40% Native Māori demographic during the third year where they will be exposed to the contrasting universal, publicly funded health system which provides free or low-cost healthcare to all.
Street Medicine Rotation and Track: Residents will be exposed to Street Medicine through the Sih Hasin Street Medicine Clinic founded and operating out of Northern Navajo Medical Center. Street medicine was pioneered in the 1990s and aims to provide healthcare and social services to the unsheltered homeless to address their unique needs directly within their environment to overcome barriers to care and follow through by meeting the individuals on their own terms in their own environment with efforts focused on harm reduction and improvement in health and wellbeing. The location of the visit may be in alleyways, urban encampments, under bridges, or the homeless shelter. Resident will attend street medicine clinic in Farmington and Shiprock two days a week during their first year of residency during their addiction medicine rotation. They will then have the opportunity of participating in the street medicine track which will include once weekly Street Medicine clinic in Farmington for nine months of their second or third year of training. The street medicine track will additionally include required research and quality improvement projects focused on street medicine and attendance of the annual International Street Medicine Symposium.
High-Altitude Medicine Rotation: This unique high altitude medicine rotation offers internal medicine residents the opportunity to explore the intersection of environmental and clinical medicine in the high mountain regions of southwest Colorado. While wilderness and high-altitude medicine have traditionally been domains of emergency medicine, internal medicine brings a distinctive lens focused on chronic disease management, physiology, and longitudinal care at altitude. Residents will participate in a 3-day high altitude medicine symposium in Silverton, Colorado, gaining foundational knowledge in altitude-related pathophysiology, prevention, and management strategies. The clinical portion of the rotation takes place in urgent and primary care clinics in remote, high-altitude towns, where residents will care for both locals and travelers presenting with altitude-related illnesses, as well as the chronic conditions affected by life at elevation. Additionally, residents may undertake a scholarly project focused on high altitude medicine, contributing to this evolving field through research grounded in real-world experience. This rotation reflects our program’s mission to connect deeply with the land and community, honoring the interdependence between environment and human health in the San Juan Mountains.
