Internal Medicine Interest Group of the Month: Mayo Medical School
Mayo Medical School's Internal Medicine Interest Group has been active continuously since 2002. Our group serves students throughout all four years of medical school with student leaders from each class. Student leaders will often continue involvement over several years, and long-term participation in this manner allows close collaboration between students and continuity of involvement on larger-scale initiatives.
Our IMIG reaches out to students early in their first year beginning with representation at our activity fair and a fall social event. Throughout the year we offer regular IM specialty-focused monthly lunch panels with distinguished faculty and residents as part of an ongoing series. Recent meetings have focused on General Internal Medicine and Cardiology, and an upcoming meeting will focus on developing the characteristics of successful applicants to IM residencies based on the most recent match. Attendance is usually in the range of 40-50 students, representing roughly half of each of the first and second year classes.
In the first two years, our school's curriculum incorporates two-week "selective" experiences. This allows students to explore their personal career interests during these periods by participating in pre-organized selectives or creating their own. Our IMIG can help students explore Internal Medicine early on by creating and supporting selectives in IM specialties and coordinating with individual students to create personalized selectives in IM. As students progress through medical school in the third and fourth years, our IMIG assists in matching them with appropriate research and career mentors by maintaining an updated and accessible database of interested mentors and projects. We regularly assess and respond to the changing needs of our students through student surveys following each IMIG-sponsored event or selective experience. These surveys solicit feedback on our successes, ways to improve, and suggestions for future experiences. The results from these surveys are compiled and included in a report written by the student leader coordinating each meeting or selective, which is then used to guide upcoming activities. These systems for feedback and reflection support innovation, adaption, and continual improvement in the services our IMIG offers.
Our funding is primarily from the generous support of the Department of Medicine, We are also very grateful for the funding we receive from the ACP for our annual Crawfish Boil, which brings a little southern living to the tundra of Minnesota. We share our annual progress and future goals each year at the Minnesota ACP spring council meeting, which has been a wonderful opportunity to receive feedback on our work and develop relationships with ACP members who want to be involved with medical students, and we also participate each year in the ACP-sponsored Minnesota Internal Medicine Residency Recruitment event.
One of the major priorities of the Mayo Medical School IM Interest Group is to continue facilitating the development of professional and social relationships with students and faculty at neighboring medical schools. Towards this goal we recently participated in a networking event for students and IM faculty hosted by the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities, and we are working closely with their leadership to create several jointly sponsored annual events between our schools beginning in the fall of 2010.
The 2009-2010 academic year was an especially successful one for our IMIG and we are excited to see what the next year will bring. We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our dedicated advisor Dr. Jaime Newman, who acts as a personal mentor to many medical students in addition to helping guide and implement the student leadership's vision each year. We would also like to thank the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine and the Minnesota Chapter of the ACP for their continuing support as we strive to continually improve our efforts to recruit and support students interested in Internal Medicine. We welcome any comments, suggestions, or new collaborations.
Maureen Murphy-Ryan
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Class of 2012
Second-year Representative, Internal Medicine Interest Group
Student Representative, Minnesota ACP Chapter Executive
Council
Email: murphyryan.maureen@mayo.edu