A Capsule Glance at the Kedren-CDU Medical Residency Partnership( continued)
it’ s the patients and you need physician supervisors. Those are the two components that make up a residency training program. And what we have that’ s unique here is the nature of our patients. And that we have physicians that are committed on our inpatient psychiatry unit. We have physicians that are strongly committed to the care of patients with very serious mental illnesses and very serious life circumstances. It’ s a unique training experience.
“ The strongest thing that we rely on here is teamwork. Everybody comes together to assess what our resources are, what the most important needs are, even things like how to structure the schedule of the day to maximize learning for our residents and medical students. And that strong team is the real nitty gritty resource. I think one of the things that we value so much is caring for our learners like we care for our patients. We also care for our workers. And we understand that what they’ ll see here is very troubling down deep in the soul. To see how people that are limited in some ways are treated by our society. And they often need a place to be able to talk about and process what they see here, and that’ s what we also provide,” added Dr. Gonzalez.
Dr. Daniel Cho, Kedren Chief of Medical Staff and Associate Residency Training Director- Psychiatry at CDU had this to offer:“ I think Kedren is a great place to be able to execute the mission of the University, which is to serve the population, the community and SPA 6. There’ s a wealth of opportunity at Kedren in terms of patient engagement and serving the needs of the community, whether it be in primary care or mental health. It’ s a perfect marriage between an academic setting and a clinical setting, that I think makes it a great opportunity for both,” he responded.
To the question of what Kedren is getting out of the relationship with CDU, Dr. Cho offered,“ It very much is a situation where a rising tide lifts all ships. With the higher standard that is required from an academic service, it acts as an example of how things should operate because as we train the future doctors of tomorrow, our whole purpose is to train them in the way things should be done. It can also act as a guide to other teams,” he said.
So, what are the challenges?“ When you instill a new culture to an organization not used to having the expectation of higher standards, you can find resistance in certain areas. A lot of it is just education and helping to instill the culture that needs to be present to provide the best patient care that we can.
“ In terms of opportunities, the residents all have come with a commitment to serve our population. This is where the magic happens. You want to serve our community? This is where it happens,” he indicated.
How do you make the connection with Drew in making this a successful working relationship?“ I think it really comes down to two things that will really make this partnership thrive. The first is to try to find people like myself, people that really understand what the purpose of this partnership is, and that have some capacity in both places. Basically, having a foot in both ponds. People having a role, at CDU as well as having a role at Kedren. That really helps the faculty understand what’ s going on and what we need to do to make this partnership thrive,” he pointed out.
“ I think the second thing is when you don’ t have everybody in those dual capacities, communication may suffer. It’ s communication like any relationship. You must have clear communication. The better that communication is, in my opinion, the better and the stronger the relationship, and the service that we provide,” he added.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 16