NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health is a 371 bed municipal hospital with over 290,000 ambulatory visits per year, serving a culturally diverse urban population. This diversity allows for a breadth of patient care experience. There is a large Inpatient and Ambulatory population crossing all age groups. The mission of the institution stresses providing health care regardless of the patient’s ability to pay.
NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health has three main buildings, the newest of which contains most of the Inpatient units, including Telemetry, all Intensive Care units, state-of-the art Maternity unit and Gynecology Inpatient unit. The hospital also has a Dialysis unit, Stroke unit, Cardiac Cath Lab, an Infusion Suite for Chemotherapeutics, Palliative Care unit and a large Rehabilitation Department. Our Emergency Department handles ~80,000 visits per year. We recently started a new construction, which will be “Sandy-proofed.” The new building will rise by 2022.
Non-internal medicine specialties available at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health include Dentistry, ENT, Ophthalmology, Urology, Vascular Surgery, Orthopedics, Maxillofacial Surgery, Plastic surgery, Podiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, and Neurosurgery.
The primary goal of NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health’s Internal Medicine Residency Program is to train fully competent, broadly skilled general internists.
We seek to educate in the model of lifelong learning, recognizing that ever-expanding knowledge and ever-growing scope of diagnostics and therapeutics requires individual self-renewal. The program is approved for 25 positions per year.
All internal medicine rotations take place in the NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health and its ambulatory facilities. Residents have many opportunities to learn and practice shared decision- making and communication skills, also to apply current evidence-based knowledge to achieve the best likelihood of the patient’s desired outcome. The program is devised to properly educate internists through didactic and clinical experiences. We are proud to achieve close to 100% ABIM and AOBIM passing rate every year.
The Internal Medicine Residency Program provides 33 % of its clinical experience in the ambulatory setting. Residents spend two half-day sessions per week in Continuity Ambulatory sessions during PGY-1 year, and two weeks at a time during the PGY-2 and PGY-3 years (“4+2“schedule). Residents develop their own panel of patients, serving as their primary care physician, under direct supervision of the Board-certified faculty members.
Residents are given guidance and advice to develop their careers, achieve scholarship, and complete the prerequisites needed for the next steps of their careers. Our house staff learn how to problem solve and begin the process of self-directed life-long teaching and learning. House staff is taught to assess patient outcomes in order to improve future decision- making and guide practice management. They acquire the ability to organize their workdays, as well as reflect upon and plan for professional-personal balance, stress reduction, and personal health.
Rotational structure
Residents benefit from Attending supervision in-house available 24/7, including, but not limited to a Hospitalist service, an Intensivist, surgical support and Ob/GYN services.
Inpatient rotations are typically 60 hours /week, including on- call time, with one full day off in seven. The inpatient General Medicine floor rotation has a “short call” three-four days a week until 7:00 pm. PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents are working on “4+2” schedule, which allows them to have time for studying, Board preparation and research.
We do not have 24-hour call in any rotation.
Night float sessions are separated by 12 hours off duty, with one 36-hour period off each week.
CCU/MICU rotations consist of six twelve hour shifts with one full day off in seven.
Elective rotations and Ambulatory Multispecialty block are typically nine hours per day, five days a week, with 2 calls during that month, usually to relieve ICU or night float team during the weekend.
All other weekends are free.
Emergency Department rotations consist of four twelve- hour shifts per week with weekends off.
Department of Medicine also supports three ACGME – Accredited Fellowships:
Cardiology – three positions per year in a three-year program
Gastroenterology – two positions per year in a three-year program
Endocrinology – two positions per year in a two-year program.
The Cardiology Fellowship program is a clinically based three-year program designed to develop awareness and basic understanding of cardiology concepts. The program involves skills in diagnosing and managing diseases of the heart and blood vessels commonly encountered in the hospital as well as the outpatient setting. Our fellowship program is dedicated to train fellows to be skilled and compassionate physicians by providing the appropriate structure, environment, tools and broad clinical experience necessary to become a proficient Cardiology specialist. Outside rotations include Bellevue Hospital and SUNY-Downstate Medical Center. As of October 2020, we have added an interventional piece to our cardiac catheterization capabilities at South Brooklyn Health and placement of loop recorders as interventions performed by the fellows and Attendings.
Our attending staff are all board-certified cardiologists with faculty positions in SUNY Downstate School of Medicine, NYIT-COM, and St. George’s University School of Medicine. Our trainees have obtained advanced subspecialty positions for further training in multiple institutions or were recruited to prestigious health systems such as Geisinger Clinics, Cleveland Clinics, Northwell, and Advantage Care. South Brooklyn Health Hospital Cardiology Division believes that its fellowship graduates are able to embark upon their career of choice once they complete the program and are second to none in their skills and abilities.
Gastroenterology fellowship was established in 2015 and graduated two classes of trainees by 2020. Our fellows and Attendings perform over 3000 procedures a year. The fellows become proficient in EGD, colonoscopy, capsule endoscopy, ERCP and all the therapeutic procedures. During the second year fellows rotate at NYU for transplant hepatology. In their third year, they rotate at Brooklyn Hospital and Kings County Hospital to familiarize themselves with EUS and advanced endoscopy. Our didactic lectures and clinical training will prepare the fellows for a successful career in Gastroenterology, we are proud to have 100% board passing rate on GI Boards.
The ACGME- accredited fellowship in Endocrinology and Metabolism has been designed to provide the fellow with a comprehensive postdoctoral training in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. The curriculum has been organized over a 24- month’s period consisting of clinical, educational, research and administrative experiences to meet the objectives of the program and to address the particular career interests of the trainee.
The major mission of this program is to provide an advanced clinical education of the highest quality, combining teaching, clinical service, patient care and research. The base institution has available resources in order to provide the Endocrinology fellows with the following services:
- Radioimmunoassay and resources for pharmacological testing.
- Ultrasonographic and radiologic facilities for endocrine imaging and diagnostic services.
- Nuclear medicine facilities for diagnostic and therapeutic interventional services.
- Endocrine surgical services.
- Pathology laboratory for interpretation of anatomic pathology and cytology specimens.
- Access to reference laboratories for karyotyping and immunologic studies.
- Wound care services.
- Access to bone densitometry.
All Endocrinology fellows become proficient in reading of thyroid ultrasounds and performing ultrasound-guided thyroid biopsies, stimulation tests and parenteral nutrition management. The program is proud to have 100% Board-passing rate on Endocrine Boards.
Internal Medicine program contacts:
Ms. Jamie Vigliotti
Program coordinator
Jamie.vigliotti@nychhc.org718-616-3779
Steven Siegel, MD
Program Director
Steven.siegel@nychhc.org
718-616-3779
Eleonora Akker, DO, FACP
Associate Program Director,
Eleonora.akker@nychhc.org718-616-3779
Zeyar Thet, MD, MBBS, FIDSA
Associate Program Director
Zeyar.thet@nychhc.org718-616-3779