Letter from the Program Director
Welcome to the Synergy Medical Education Alliance/Michigan State University Emergency Medicine Residency Program’s web site! Throughout this website, we have tried to provide you with a glimpse into the EM program here in Saginaw, Michigan.
Our training sites:
Our program is based out of the Synergy Medical Education Alliance, a medical education institution that is part of a 40 year old consortium now with our two Saginaw hospitals and Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. We work primarily at the two large hospitals in Saginaw. The two hospitals, Covenant and St. Mary’s of Michigan are unique for teaching facilities. Covenant is a large ED with 75,000 patients per year and a broad mix of patients including approximately 20,000 pediatric patients annually. St. Mary’s is a smaller ED, with 25,000 patients annually a very high acuity and a facility design that allows the senior residents to run the entire ED. Each hospital has a helicopter service, bringing patients from a surrounding 100-150 mile radius. Our EDs have a wide variety of patients, including classic inner city urban problems and suburban and rural issues.
Our clinical curriculum:
In the Emergency Department, our residents work a combination of 8 & 10-hour shifts averaging no more than 190 hours per month on the ED rotations. Our current off-service curriculum has only 5 months of in-house call during the 36 months of training. This allows our residents to maintain a healthy balance in their lives. The off-service rotations emphasize critical care patients, with 5 months of critical care including Trauma critical care, CCU, MICU and PICU rotations. Other rotations are chosen for their award-winning faculty teaching and individualized opportunities for residents. Due to the flexibility of our system, we are able to change off-service rotations as needed to provide the maximum educational opportunities for our residents.
Our didactic curriculum:
Our program is designed to allow every resident to become competent in performing procedures through both extensive training in the simulation center and completing many procedures on patients. Our graduates routinely have completed 4 times the minimum training requirements in intubations and resuscitations. The average number of ultrasounds performed by last years’ graduates was more than 250. With a great patient per learner ratio than most training sites, there is no competition for patients, procedures and the individual teaching by the faculty. Our conference curriculum emphasizes hands on and interactive sessions and as well as emphasizing learning the basics with weekly Tintinalli book review and oral boards practice monthly.
Our residents:
Our residents hail from all regions of the country, having trained in various allopathic and osteopathic medical schools. With the new Michigan licensing laws, we are now able to accept osteopathic students directly after medical school graduation if they are willing to consider applying for an AOA resolution #42 exemption after their first year here at Synergy Medical. Starting in 2009, we also have two residents per year through a special program with the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission. They are training here to become board certified in exactly the same manner as our other residents and then plan on returning to Saudi Arabia to continue to practice emergency medicine there. Many of our residents are married and have families. As housing costs are so reasonable in Saginaw, more than half of our residents own their homes including several of our single residents.
Our faculty:
Our emergency medicine faculty trained in many different facilities, bringing a wealth of knowledge and different skill sets to teach our residents. Several of our faculty members are involved nationally in emergency medicine organizations including American College of Emergency Physicians, Council of EM Residency Directors and National Association of EMS Physicians. These faculty members bring a national perspective to the program and have a rich network that helps our seniors as they look for jobs all over the country.
After graduation:
After training in our three different Emergency Departments (including a one month rotation at Hurley an urban high volume ED in Flint, MI), the residents have had the opportunity to understand and work with different styles of hospitals, nursing staffs and patients. They have easily transitioned into in 29 different states and 3 different countries -- in large cities and small towns, in academic and community-based practices. Feedback from our graduates’ employers has been excellent. Our graduates are uniformly well prepared for clinical practice and are praised for their efficiency, communication skills and knowledge of billing and coding.
We invite you to look at our website for further information and contact us if you have any questions. We encourage you to come to Saginaw to meet our residents and faculty and see why we are all proud to practice here!
Mary Jo Wagner, MD
Program Director and Chair
Department of Emergency Medicine
Synergy Medical Education Alliance