Adonis Lorenzana, MD
Program Director

Anne Dwyer
Residency Coordinator

The Transitional Year Program at St. John Hospital and Medical Center is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

The Transitional Year is designed to provide well-balanced graduate medical education in multiple clinical disciplines. Because of the number of electives allowed, it offers a flexibility to the applicant not found in other one-year programs.

The Transitional Year is designed to fulfill the education needs of medical school graduates who:

• Have chosen a career specialty for which the respective program in graduate medical education has, as a prerequisite, one year of fundamental clinical education (i.e., ophthalmology);
• Have not yet made a career choice or specialty experience and desire a flexible, broad-based year to assist them in making that decision;
• Must have at least one year of fundamental clinical education prior to entering a career path which does not require broad clinical skills such as administrative medicine or non-clinical research.

Transitional Year residents rotate two months in General Internal Medicine, one month in Emergency Medicine, and one month in Ambulatory Medicine, and one additional month of either general Internal Medicine or Pediatrics. While rotating on these services, the TY resident rotates with categorical residents and receives the same supervision and teaching. Two more months must be taken in basic skill disciplines (Basic Skill Disciplines are defined by the ACGME as being Obstetrics & Gynecology, General Surgery, Internal Medicine, Family Practice or Emergency Medicine). The Transitional Year resident can choose the remaining months to be spent in Family Practice, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Emergency Medicine or General Surgery. The remaining five months are elective months and are chosen by the TY resident in any of the above rotations or Pathology, Radiology, or Anesthesiology.

The resident may also request rotations in the following Medicine subspecialties:

• Allergy
• Cardiology
• Dermatology
• GI
• Hematology/Oncology
• Infectious Diseases
• Neurology
• PM&R
• Neuro-ophthalmology
• Pulmonology
• Rheumatology

The rotation schedule is flexible and is individually structured to meet each TY resident’s needs.

St. John Hospital and Medical Center offers an extensive selection of rotations to choose from. Opportunities for taking outside electives exist but require the approval of the Program Director. Details regarding electives are discussed at the time of the interview.

Residents who complete a Transitional Year Program at St. John Hospital and Medical Center are given special consideration when applying for any Grad Year I Categorical Programs in this hospital. In such cases, the second year is considered as Grad Year II for pay purposes and Grad Year I for training purposes. Following is a list of recent TY graduates, their medical schools and the residencies that followed their TY training:

Transitional Residents /Medical School/ Post SJH Training

2004-2005

Patrick Guffy, MD
University of Michigan
Department of Anesthesiology/University of California, San Francisco, CA

Mark Gjolaj, MD 
University of Michigan 
Department of Anesthesiology/Stanford University Hospital, Palo Alto, CA

Melanie Lewis Darke, MD 
Wayne State University
Department of Anesthesiology/Beth Israel Deaconess, Boston, MA

William Slater, MD 
Wayne State University/
Department of Radiology/Emory University, Atlanta, GA

For more information please call the Graduate Medical Education Department (313) 343-3875, or visit us on the Web at http://stjohn.org/physicianresources.cfm

Medical Education Department
St. John Hospital and Medical Center
22101 Moross Road
Detroit, Michigan  48236