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Graduate Medical Education

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Graduate Medical Education

Graduate Medical Education (GME) is that critical period of intense work wherein the medical school graduate acquires the skills, attitudes and knowledge necessary to enter private practice or academic medicine in their specialty of choice.

Residency lasts from three to seven years, depending on the specialty or subspecialty goal. In GME, the graduate physician assumes progressive levels of responsibility for the care of patients under the supervision of faculty. The goal is for residents to be competent and ready to be independent practitioners at the end of their training.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) (ACGME) is the national body charged with evaluating and accrediting institutions that sponsor GME and programs that provide GME in the United States. The ACGME’s mission is to improve health care by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians’ education through exemplary accreditation. Temple University Hospital is an ACGME-accredited sponsoring institution. Susan Coull, MBA, Chief Graduate Medical Education Officer, SVP-TUH, Assistant Dean of UGME & GME - LKSOM serves as the Designated Institutional Official (DIO) for Temple University Health System a position required by the ACGME.

The primary teaching hospital for most of the Temple University Hospital programs is the main hospital located on North Broad Street; secondary teaching hospital is Episcopal Hospital located in North Philadelphia. FCCC and Jeans is the primary teaching hospitals for Oncology based fellowships.  In addition, the institution has educational agreements with numerous other facilities in the area for specific rotations.

All of the Temple University Hospital GME programs have embraced the goal of instruction and assessment of resident/fellow competency in the six domains — patient care, medical knowledge, professionalism, interpersonal and communication skills, practice-based learning and improvement, and systems-based practice. In addition, the ACGME has mandated that residents work no more than 80 hours per week, on average. Temple University Hospital programs are meeting these requirements while preserving the educational components of GME. Moreover, the institution has developed and continues to encourage development of innovative projects in medical education.