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Residency Program

Please note: Foreign nationals must be eligible for either a TN or J1 visa with no bars or home country requirement.

The University of California, Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital offers a 3-year residency program in small animal internal medicine to provide advanced veterinary training to graduate veterinarians. Emphasis is placed on clinical medicine, teaching, and research. Each resident spends approximately 2/3 of the time on clinics in small animal internal medicine and 2 months on related clinical rotations (oncology, cardiology, clinical pathology, and neurology) during the program. The remainder of each year is allotted to research endeavors, board preparation, vacation, and attending scientific meetings. Appointments to the residency program will be made for 12 months with the opportunity of 12-month renewal upon successful completion of each term.

Clinical Medicine: The Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital houses state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment including endoscopy, laparoscopy, ultrasonography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear scintigraphy, fluoroscopy, hemodialysis, urodynamic testing, and laser lithotripsy. The Small Animal Medicine Service is staffed by faculty with diverse interests including endocrinology, oncology, gastroenterology, nutrition, infectious disease, respiratory medicine, and both upper and lower urinary tract disorders.

Residents spend the majority of their residency on the internal medicine service. Additional required rotations throughout the 3 year program include at least 2 weeks of cardiology, neurology, and oncology, and 1 week of clinical pathology and radiology/ultrasound. Elective rotations may be chosen from other services within the hospital (e.g. ophthalmology, dermatology, and emergency/intensive care).

The Small Animal Medicine referral service operates a two team system with a faculty member, a second or third year resident, a first year resident, and 5-8 students on each team. In their first year, residents will usually receive cases with their primary supervising faculty member in order to obtain supervision in each faculty member's area of interest. The receiving schedule can vary but each clinician faculty member receives approximately 10 new cases per week with additional time slots allotted for reevaluations. Furthermore, each service manages approximately 8-12 in patients per day. Each resident will also be scheduled for emergency transfers on a rotating basis. Depending on case load and in-house patients, the resident on primary pick-up duty will accept the first 3 cases from other in-house services, and the next 2 cases are taken by the resident on secondary pick-up duty. Additional transfers are handled by available residents. Over the weekend, a medicine resident and two medicine students are on duty for emergency transfers. Weekend medicine back-up is provided by SAM residents on a rotating basis determined by seniority. Cases that require substantial medical oversight or diagnostic testing are accepted at the discretion of the medicine resident on duty.

After-hours emergency duty for VMTH patients and emergency referral cases is shared by dedicated emergency clinicians and residents. Although emergency duty is shared by all small animal residents, frequency of emergency duty is decreased over the course of the 3 year program based on seniority.

Organized rounds and seminars in support of the residency training program include twice-daily student rounds, resident rounds with faculty 3 times weekly, weekly small animal medicine journal club, weekly physiology courses, and weekly evening board review sessions. Residents are not required to attend house officer rounds when on vacation or when rotating through elective rotations but are expected to attend at all other times. A weekly physiology review course provides in-depth review of all organ systems over a 2 year interval. A weekly journal club (1 hour) covers recent advances in the literature. A variety of ad hoc conferences, seminars, and local CE courses are scheduled throughout the academic year. Annual endoscopy training courses are also provided during each year of the residency.

The resident is responsible for the day-to-day organization of the cases in their care, including supervision of students, completion of medical records for inpatients, and assessment of immediate patient needs. Final responsibility rests with the faculty. The hospital has a heavy clinical caseload, and the resident should expect to be involved in activities of the VMTH for approximately 60 to 70 hours per week.

Residents are provided with formal written and verbal feedback at least twice yearly and are requested to provide comments on the training program during the evaluation process. Additional review sessions are provided as needed.

Teaching: Teaching skills are developed in the clinic, through grand rounds presentations, and through instruction in the physical examination portion of junior surgery labs. In addition, residents participate in instruction of sophomores and junior in the physical examination and medical techniques laboratory throughout the year.

Research: All residents are expected to complete a clinical research project in the form of a retrospective case series or a prospective examination of diagnostics or therapeutics and the present the information at a relevant venue. Studies are completed during off-clinic time. Intramural funds are available to support resident projects on a competitive basis, and residents are encouraged to submit proposals for review. Reseach project discussions/presentations are scheduled quarterly and attended by all the faculty. Residents should plan to present their projects with results and conclusions to the School of Veterinary Medicine faculty at House Officer Seminar Day, and submission of an abstract to the ACVIM Forum is encouraged. At least one peer-reviewed manuscript is expected during the residency. Furthermore, a first author publication is a requirement of the College of ACVIM for board certification. The faculty provides supervision and mentoring for each resident to help complete their manuscript in a timely fashion.

Residents are provided with computer support throughout the program and have access to a complete medical library. Financial support is available for travel to one national meeting each year and for miscellaneous academic expenses including literature searches and photocopying.

Small Animal Internal Medicine Residency Program

Advisors are assigned to each resident at the beginning of each year. The faculty advisor need not be the sponsor of the resident's research, but is responsible for assisting the resident in meeting his/her professional goals. The faculty advisor will also serve as a resource for ACVIM requirements and resources available at UC Davis. The faculty advisor is responsible for checking on the progress of the resident and for approving the schedule of specialty or elective rotation, board preparation time, and vacation.

A template of a possible schedule for a resident in our program is provided below. This schedule presented is a template; various other electives such as laparoscopy training, extra time in the other medicine specialties, radiology or research can be arranged. Electives can be tailored to the individual resident's interest, but the amount of time spent on the internal medicine service is required.

Year One: The primary goal of the first year is to provide training that will lead to clinical proficiency. When on internal medicine, residents work under the direct and indirect supervision of a Diplomate of the ACVIM, but as stated previously, each resident will have the opportunity to receive cases with a faculty member when they rotate on their service. On primary receiving days, new referrals are to be scheduled in all appointment slots, although one appointment time is usually held as an approval slot for each resident or service coordinator to schedule. Recheck appointments are oftentimes scheduled on a separate receiving day. Transfer of emergency cases is performed at 7:30 AM, and transfers do not have to be taken after this time.

During 2.5 months of off clinics time, residents are assigned to one week with the clinical pathology service. In addition, the resident should organize participation in another 1-week rotation or a 2-week specialty rotation (cardiology, oncology, or neurology). The service chief of the specialty should be contacted well in advance to ensure that the medicine resident can rotate onto that service during off time. Vacation time is allotted and first year residents attend one national meeting per year (North American Veterinary Conference or Western Veterinary Conference). Additional off-clinics time is spent on professional development by writing grants, working on projects, and reading or writing papers. During this time, the resident is expected to be in his/her office and attending resident rounds, on-campus conferences, and seminars unless approval for off-campus endeavors has been arranged with the faculty advisor. Special leave forms must be completed prior to leaving.

First year residents attend and participate in weekly physiology class, evening board review sessions, and journal club. Attendance is mandatory at these programs. Approximately every other month, an resident research night will be held with the faculty. Two residents will present new research projects for faculty review and will update all faculty on progress on existing projects. A research project should be underway by the end of the first year.

Year Two: The second year resident will continue participation in the teaching hospital/small animal medicine program. Approximately 9 months will be spent rotating through small animal internal medicine. Second year residents fully participate in the receiving service of small animal internal medicine, accept transfers on a rotating system with first and third year residents, perform resident of the month duties, and provide emergency medicine coverage as determined by the needs of the VMTH. Two week rotations through the other specialties are also arranged.

Approximately 8 weeks of personal development time are available to second year residents, during which can be used for writing manuscripts, board preparation and vacation. The resident is expected to register for and take the internal medicine general examination at the end of year 2, and time off is provided to attend the ACVIM meeting.

Year Three: The third year resident is on duty with the small animal internal medicine service for approximately 8 months of the year. Third year residents fully participate in the receiving service of small animal internal medicine, accept transfers on a rotating system with first and second year residents, perform resident of the month duties, and provide emergency medicine coverage as determined by the needs of the VMTH. However, third year residents are on primary transfer duty no more than once per week. Limited emergency duty is required during the final year of the program as determined by the VMTH.

During the third year, each resident is expected to complete their research manuscript and we strongly encourage them to present their findings at the ACVIM meeting. Time is also provided to study for the certifying examination that is to be taken at the end of year 3.

Additional responsibilities of the third year resident include scheduling duties of the resident of the month 1 and 2, arranging the schedule for journal club topics and presentations, planning research nights with faculty, and coordinating the topics for the physiology review course.

Resident of the Month (ROM 1) - This resident performs official and unofficial consults for other services during the week. This resident also performs endoscopy procedures (bronchoscopy, cystoscopy, rhinoscopy and, gastroduodenoscopy) for other services Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm. The ROM I performs the endoscopy and completes the endoscopy report in the medical record but does not become the primary clinician. This resident also takes phone calls and fills prescriptions for other medicine residents and medicine faculty that are off clinics.

After hours resident (ROM 2) - This resident performs emergency endoscopy procedures after hours Monday through Friday from 5pm to 8am and all weekend. This resident also takes weekend transfers and performs weekend consults.

Weekend Transfers
Intense internal medicine cases that require specific diagnostics or medical therapy that cannot be provided by the emergency clinician on duty can be transferred to the internal medicine resident on weekend transfer duty. The medicine resident is to be paged before 8AM and the medical record will be up to date prior to transfer.

If candidates have other questions regarding our internal medicine residency program, they are encouraged to contact Dr. Jodi Westropp at 530-752-1393 or jlwestropp@ucdavis.edu.