Conference & Didactics

2024-25 AY Conference Modules

July - Resuscitation

August - Neurology

September - GI

October - Environmental

November - Pulmonary

December - Infectious Disease

January - Orthopedics

February - Cardiology

March - Toxicology

April - Trauma

May - OB/GYN

June - ENT & Ophthalmology

Conference Good Standing

Residents will be considered in good standing with respect to conference if they meet all the following criteria:

  1. Have an in-person conference attendance of  ≥62.5%

  2. Have completed ≥50% of available asynchronous content to date

  3. Have an overall conference attendance of ≥70% 

*For the purposes of moonlighting requests, we will assess good standing at the time of request/approval. 

Conference Attendance

The RRC requires that every resident achieve an 70% of total planned didactic experiences per year (approx. 42 conferences/year). This is 70% of the total offered conferences annually and is not reduced for vacation, off-service, overnights, or elective time. The 70% attendance already considers the missed teaching as the result of vacation, illness, specific off-service rotations, or when work requirements preclude attending conference.  

  • Journal Club, Ultrasound, and PEM division weekly conferences may be added for conference credit. Please send an email to the Chiefs and copy appropriate division leadership for confirmation.

  • Additional conference credit may be granted for in person external regional and national conferences. In order to obtain credit for the outside conference, residents must provide a list of attended lectures with associated dates and times and may claim up to 15 hours of conference credit per academic year.

Attendance will be reported at the end of each quarter.

  • A resident who fails to have a 70% attendance rate at the end of their PGY4 year will be retained by the program until this number is met. 

  • A resident that fails to have a 70% attendance rate at the end of each year will be remediated with additional reading, lectures and possibly lack of advancement to the next PGY level.

Special Considerations: 

  • Residents working until midnight on the Tuesday preceding a Wednesday conference may arrive at 10AM instead of 8AM to ensure the usual 10 hours off between clinical duties and didactics. 

  • Residents scheduled to be working the Emergency Department at 8AM on a Wednesday must report to Wednesday conference at 8AM; failure to do so will result in owing the residency one shift.

  • All residents should report to their shift by 1PM. Residents scheduled to work on the opposite campus must take the 12:15 shuttle and report to their shift by 1PM. Lunch should be eaten before arriving on shift. In extenuated circumstances only, a short break for lunch may be arranged with your Attending after arrival at your assigned clinical area.

Virtual Conference

Virtual conferences can allow for high quality didactics and larger audience participation. This is especially true at our a bi-campus program, as virtual conference permits faculty from both sites to synchronously attend.

We expect every resident to treat virtual conference as they would an in-person conference session. This includes being an active participant and leaving cameras on during the entirety of conference out of respect for our presenters. Failure to do so consistently will be considered an absence for that specific conference.

Our residency program offers both dedicated virtual conferences and virtual options for selected in-person conferences.  

  • Dedicated Virtual Conferences: Residents are expected to be active participants during dedicated virtual conference; as noted above, this entails active engagement with lecturers and small groups, as well as an on-cameras for the entirety of the conference. If extenuating circumstances prevent a resident from having a camera on (e.g. illness, post-overnight), they should message the Chief Residents and/or conference APDs directly and in a timely manner.

  • Virtual Option for In-Person Conferences: While we recognize the value of in-person learning, we also know clinical schedules can limit in-person attendance. As such, residents may attend virtually select in-person conferences under special circumstances. Residents may virtually attend in-person conference if they are:

    • On NICU rotation

    • On MICU rotation

    • Pre/Post-Overnight (e.g. worked overnight Tuesday or will work overnight Wednesday).
      IMPORTANT: This does not apply to Tuesday evening shifts ending at midnight. These residents are still expected to arrive at in-person conference by 10AM per usual conference policy.

    • Utilizing one of four (4) academic year virtual wildcards for personal reasons. The resident must notify the conference chiefs or APDs during conference if they use a wildcard; otherwise, they will be marked absent.

Asynchronous Curriculum (I3)

The ACGME requires that emergency medicine residents receive 5 hours of educational instruction weekly. The education team offers on average 4 hours of didactic teaching weekly, and residents will complete the additional hour of learning via an asynchronous curriculum. This is referred to as Individualized Interactive Instruction (I3) and may present up to 20% of required didactic education according to the ACGME. Asynchronous credit opportunities are listed below.

I3 Requirements

For activities to be considered for I3 credits, the following criteria must be met:

  1. Residency leadership must monitor resident participation

  2. There must be an assessment component to each I3 activity

  3. The activity must be monitored for effectiveness

  4. There must be faculty oversight

To ensure these criteria are met, residency leadership will monitor I3 activities logs on a quarterly basis. Residents must complete all associated I3 assessments and must take advantage of any available I3 feedback components. All I3 activities must include faculty oversight, defined as some combination of active faculty presence and supervision of sessions, faculty review of content, and/or faculty-moderated discussion sessions/didactics.

Credit should be logged via the Google Form. Activities are only counted for I3 credit if they are entered in the asynchronous activity log within 30 days of completion. A faculty contributor must be listed with each logged activity.  If the EM faculty was external to NYPEM, then the request for signoff will be sent to the PD or relevant APD. Resident should track their asynchronous credit on a quarterly basis to ensure they are meeting residency and ACGME expectations with respect to conference attendance.

    • 25 hours maximum

    • ALiEM AIR courses can be accessed here

    • Residents will receive specified hours of credit for each completed unit, which entails post-assessments. 

    • Residency leadership will monitor individualized learning reports and respond to learner feedback

    • Add Chris Reisig as your assigned coach to receive credit (chr2019@med.cornell.edu)

    • 25 hours maximum

    • ECG Stampeded can be accessed here

    • Residents will receive 2.5 hours of credit for each completed unit, which entails completion of pre- and post-assessments. 

    • Residency leadership will monitor individualized learning reports and respond to learner feedback

    • You should have received an email invitation from ECG Stampede to your nyp.org email. Please accept this invite!  

    • 2 hours maximum per year

    • Residents will work with an EM faculty mentor to develop a unique lecture to be presented at resident conference on an emergency medicine topic

    • Faculty advisor(s) must be listed as a contributor

    • 2 hours maximum per year

    • Residents will work with an EM faculty mentor to develop a CORD style Clinical Pathologic Case competition presentation to be presented at resident conference.

    • Faculty advisor must be listed as a contributor

    • 2 hours maximum per year

    • Residents will work with an EM faculty mentor to develop a core content lecture to be presented at residency conference.

    • Faculty advisor must be listed as a contributor

    • 2 hours maximum per year

    • Residents will work with the EM QA committee members to review cases, research and then present the monthly QA conference.

    • 2 hour per lecture/lab, 12 hours maximum per year

    • Residents may receive credit for preparing and developing medical student didactics when directly mentored by EM faculty. 

    • Resident teaching of medical students must additionally be supervised by emergency medicine faculty for credit.

    • The faculty supervisor’s name must be submitted for credit to be given.

    • 48 hours maximum

      • ACLS – 8 hours

      • PALS – 8 hours

      • Procedure Training (2 sessions) – 9 hours

      • Ultrasound Labs (2 sessions) – 12 hours

      • SAFE training – 6 hours

      • TeamSTEPPS – 3 hour

      • Simulation  - 4 hours

      • Core Content (3 sessions) - 10 hours

      • Telemedicine training - 2 hours

    • As components of intern orientation are separate from residency conference, interns may log participation as asynchronous credit.

    • All components of intern orientation are directly overseen by emergency medicine faculty who provide real time feedback.

    • ATLS Certification: 8 hours maximum

    • PALS Recertification: 4 hours maximum

    • ACLS Recertification: 4 hours maximum

    • 1-4 hour per competition, 8 hours maximum per year

    • Residents may receive credit for preparing and participating in SimWars and SonoWars competitions.  These competitions must occur separate from residency conference activities (i.e. NYPEM SonoOlympics counts only for standard conference credit.)  

    • The faculty supervisor’s name must be submitted for credit to be given.

    • 1-2 hours per activity; 8 hours maximum per year

    • The resident must work with a faculty mentor who will supervise, answer questions, and provide feedback for work done in preparation for submitting scholarly work.

    • The activity needs to be pre-approved by residency leadership.

    • Time logged on the asynchronous activity log must coincide with time spent on the activity and may not exceed 2 hours per activity.  Each activity must be logged separately.

    • Faculty advisor(s) must be listed

    • 2 hours per session, 24 hours maximum per year

    • The resident must actively participate in the session

    • Faculty lecturer (s) must be listed

Resident-Led Didactics

Resident Conference Lectures

PGY2: Core Content (30 min)
PGY3: M&M (60 min)
PGY4: PGY4 Grand Rounds (30 min)

You will receive notification of when you are scheduled for these lectures 8+ weeks in advance.

The tentative resident lecture schedule for AY 24-25 can be found here. Please note this schedule is subject to change.

Theme Days

PGY2, PGY3, and PGY4 residents will each be responsible for working with a group to organize a resident conference focused on a topic of their choosing.

The Education Chiefs will assign your Theme Day group and date, which can be found on the Resident Lecture Schedule.

The Theme Day Roadmap can be found here.

Morning Reports

Senior residents will give 1-2 morning report lectures per EM block (designated with a ^ on the block schedule).

Senior residents should contact their faculty mentor at least 3-4 days in advance to discuss the topic and teaching style for the session.

Cornell MR is 9am-10am in the Res Room
Columbia MR is 9am-10am in the Res Room

Selectives & Electives

PGY2 Selectives

PGY2 residents will be scheduled for a total of 4 weeks of Selective (two 2-week blocks). One of these selective blocks will have sick call responsibilities (see annual schedule).

See below for Selective options and contact information. More information may be found in the Resident Handbook.

The Selective Request Form must be submitted 30 days prior to the start date of your selective.

  • This two week rotation is designed for PGY-2 residents to improve their evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of acute orthopedic injuries including fractures and dislocations. Residents will work with the orthopedics consults team and assist with closed fracture reductions, splinting, casting, joint aspirations, and other acute interventions. One day of each week will consist of working in a sports medicine clinic to become more familiar with management of largely non-interventional diagnoses. Resources will be provided to augment learning regarding ED-based orthopedic interventions and diseases. Residents will not participate in orthopedics call or inpatient responsibilities.

    Contact:
    Abdul-Aziz Ahmed
    aba9034@med.cornell.edu

    Steve B. Behrens
    behrenss@hss.edu

  • This rotation is designed to allow residents to further hone their ultrasound skills. During this rotation, you will participate in QA of your images based on the following metrics:
    1) Technically adequate EUS images
    2) Ultrasound study interpretation
    3) Practice-based learning and improvement

    It is preferable that you not select US as a selective when on sick call.

    Contact:
    Andres Arredondo-Santana
    aa5235@cumc.columbia.edu

    Munaza Rizvi 
    mr4053@cumc.columbia.edu

  • Residents during this course will learn how to do a full eye examination including fundoscopic and slit lamp examinations. The focus of the course will be on diagnosing and caring for ophthalmologic cases commonly found in the Emergency Department, including corneal ulcers, abrasions, uveitis, retinal pathology, CRAO/CRVO and glaucoma. During the rotation, the residents will be assigned to, and directly supervised by, faculty advisors and residents in the Department of Ophthalmology.

    Contact:
    Kyle J Godfrey, MD
    kyg9004@med.cornell.edu

    Megi Zeku
    mez2004@med.cornell.edu

  • The second-year emergency medicine (EM) resident will learn how to interpret basic emergency radiology modalities such as x-ray, ultrasound, CT and MR imaging under the instruction of board-certified radiologists at NYP.  Emphasis will be placed on key emergency medicine diagnoses, such as neurologic emergencies (including ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke), pulmonary embolism, aortic dissection, acute abdominal diseases, bowel obstruction, pneumonia, cholecystitis, ovarian pathology, cord compression and unstable cervical fractures.

    Contact:
    J. Jacob Kazam, MD
    jjk9004@med.cornell.edu

Senior Resident Electives

PGY3 residents will be scheduled for a total of 4 weeks of Elective (two 2-week blocks, or one 4-week block). There are no sick call responsibilities during the PGY3 Elective block.

PGY4 residents will be scheduled for a total of 8 weeks of Elective (scheduled in 2-week blocks or 4-week blocks). PGY4s are responsible for a total of 4 weeks of sick call coverage during their Elective blocks. Residents will be given the opportunity to request which elective block they want to be designated for sick call.

Your elective may be clinical, administrative, research, or education-oriented, and must be focused on strengthening Core Competencies. All away electives require presentation and approval by the NYP GME Committee.

Elective options may be found in the Elective Catalog.

The Elective Request Form must be submitted 60 days prior to the start date for home electives, and 120 days prior to the start date for away electives.

Exam Preparation

In-Training Examination

All residents will take the Emergency Medicine In-Training Exam in February each academic year.

Residents receive free access to Rosh Review. Each month a question set will be assigned. Completion of the assigned monthly question set is required for PGY1 residents.

Wednesday evening ITE Review sessions will be held via Zoom from November to mid-February. Recordings of prior ITE Reviews can be found on the YouTube channel.

Board Certification

In order to become Board-Certified in Emergency Medicine, ABEM requires Board Eligible physicians to take a Qualifying Exam. RoshReview is commonly used to prepare for the Qualifying Exam. You can view NEMBR slides here.

Historically, the Qualifying Exam has been followed by the Oral Board Examination. However, for 2025 onward, ABEM is retiring the Oral Board Exam and initiating the Certifying Exam. More information can be found here and here.

Academic Practice Tracks

Academic practice tracks (APTs) represent the various areas of sub-specialization within emergency medicine. Similar to ‘mini fellowships’ the APTs exist to support faculty and residents to mutually benefit one another as they pursue work and enhance their expertise within specific niches of EM. The faculty at both Columbia and Weill Cornell are talented leaders in the various subspecialities and niches of EM, and resident engagement in the APTs serves to foster interest, accomplishment, and career advancement in the various areas.

Cornell Scheduling Chief:
Barbara Magid

Columbia Scheduling Chief:
Christian Davidson

Cornell Education Chief:
Reena Sheth

Columbia Education Chief:
Shriman Balasubramanian