December 16, 2003

Dear Colleagues:

Good news! The Residency Review Committee for Internal Medicine (RRC-IM) of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has granted the Department of Medicine's internal medicine residency program full accreditation. This action was taken in response to our request for reconsideration of a decision to decertify the program and replaces the interim probationary status. While we will be required to submit a progress report in September, the next site visit for this program will not take place until February 2006.

Thanks to all of you who worked so hard in preparation for the repeat site visit in October. You clearly demonstrated that, in addition to the many changes implemented by the internal medicine program to comply with work hour rules both before and after July 1, we have redoubled our efforts to assure compliance with those rules. We are delighted that the program once again has attained full accreditation, a status it has enjoyed since 1955.

Official letters from the RRC-IM should arrive by the end of the month. Until then, we will not issue a public statement about the revised status.

Now we must redouble our efforts to prepare for the institutional site visit scheduled for February. We are devoting enormous amounts of time and financial resources not just to meet, but to exceed, the ACGME standards. We have allocated many more staff to monitor duty hours and reorganized the Graduate Medical Education Committee structure to provide closer and better oversight of our residency programs. A full time compliance officer, John Rybock, M.D., a member of the neurosurgery faculty, has been hired and a team appointed to verify information provided by each residency program on an ongoing basis.

We believe that standards for resident duty hours are essential to a residency program that strives to provide compassionate patient care, advance scientific research and professionalism, and assure the best possible educational experience for residents.

We know that hundreds of you as residents, faculty and staff are working hard not only to maintain educational and clinical excellence, but also to achieve total compliance with ACGME standards. In many cases, this work goes beyond your own programs and extends to sister programs and to the institution as a whole. Only your faith in the promise of very talented house staff and fellows can explain this level of devotion. We are very grateful for your ongoing efforts in this regard.

Sincerely,