Career Advisor's Background and Career Information

Background

Name: Karen Hauer, MD
Career Advisor for: Internal Medicine
Title(s): Director of Internal Medicine Clerkships, Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
Best way to contact (e-mail, phone?): 476-1964, khauer@medicine.ucsf.edu
Undergraduate & Graduate Degrees/Institutions: A.B. Stanford University M.D. UCSF
Clinical Interests/Duties: Clinical: UCSF Hospitalist Group. Primary Care Physician, UCSF
Research Interests/Duties: Medical education: mentoring, inpatient teaching, clinical skills instruction, qualitative research
Personal Notes or Comments: I enjoy meeting with students to discusss their career plans!

Career Information

1. What can students do in the 1st and 2nd years to explore and/or prepare for this career? Paticipate in the Internal Medicine Interest group, through noon presentations and through the Shadow Program, in which Essential Core students can shadow a third year student on the internal medicine wards.

2. What common variations exist in the length/content of residency programs for this career? IM residency is 3 years. There are traditional categorical programs, which are inpatient based. Cateogrical residents usually pursue subspecialty fellowships afterward (e.g. cardiology, infectious disease), but can also become hospitalists or primary care physicians. Primary care residency programs are also 3 years, but incorporate more clinic time and small group seminar teaching.

3. What common variations exist in this career after training? endless! Subspecialty practice, hospitalist, primary care doctor, clinician-scientist, clinical researcher, outcomes researcher, health policy, international health, medical education.

4. What is a typical work day for you (or someone else representative)?

5. What is the "culture" of this career? Diverse interests, interested in the whole patient, motivated to teach and learn, enjoys problem solving and analysis.

6. How compatible is this career with raising a family? How is this different for men and women? Wealth of options for part time or full time work make it potentially very compatible with the rest of your life.

7. How important, individually, are each the following for admission to a competitive program:

a.Extra-curricular/volunteer work? +
b. Research/publications? +
c. Honors in third year? ++ - including narratives in the Dean's letter
d. AOA? +
e. A sub-internship? Just the required IM subI at UCSF; no need to do away subinternships
f. An externship? 0
g. (Other important elements to the application?) clinical performance, letters of recommendation, other distinguishing accomplishments (research, leadership, curriculum work, advocacy, policy).

8. What are the most important qualities or character traits for a person in this field? Commitment to patients, critical thinker, strong work ethic - to be thorough and careful. Enjoy teamwork.

9. How competitive are the residency programs in this field? UCSF students match extremely well in IM - at the top programs in the country. UCSF students are highly sought by residency programs.

10. How competitive is the job market after residency?

11. What programs would you consider to be in the 1st tier, 2nd tier, and 3rd tier? the most commonly selected IM residencies by UCSF students in recent years are: UCSF - categorical and primary care, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, UCLA, Stanford

12. What resources (web, books, etc, besides the AMA and AAMC sites) would you recommend for students interested in learning more about this field?
American Medical Association:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/14.html
American College of Physicians: http://www.acponline.org/srf/med_imcareers.htm
UCSF Internal Medicine Residency: http://medicine.ucsf.edu/housestaff/