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Resident Pairing

pairing guy & girlIn order to provide adequate time to care for outpatient families, all residents are assigned a partner. The team is paired throughout the three years.

How it Works

Two residents are assigned as a team to an in-hospital service. The two round together every day to provide continuity of care for the patients assigned to them. Pairing does not mean splitting the work of one person but working jointly. After rounding, one resident remains on the ward and the other goes to the office to care for office patients. On alternate days, they switch responsibilities.

This system of resident assignment offers the following advantages:

  • Each resident has an accessible support person, on a longitudinal basis, undergoing a similar experience. Also, partners often trade call in order to accommodate pairing couple personal needs.
  • More frequent office sessions while his or her partner covers the service. (This is especially important for our PGY-1s, who get more office experience earlier.)
  • Increased inpatient educational opportunities. Team residents see and manage twice the number of patients just one resident admits.
  • Residents learn and experiment with systems of partnership practice.
  • Continuity of patient care. The same partnership includes OB continuity patients.
  • It offers a good schedule. Two or three nights a week, one resident is home at a reasonable time after office hours. Teams reduce the uncertainties of inpatient admissions and emergencies.

Resident pairing, based on requests by residents, is decided during the orientation week prior to starting the first year. By then, new PGY-1s have spent several days getting to know one another.