Application:

Is there a minimum USMLE Step 2/COMLEX Level 2 score required?

No. We take into account your whole application.

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Do you accept COMLEX 1 in lieu of USMLE Step 1?

Yes!  Passing COMLEX 1 is considered equivalent to passing USMLE Step 1.  

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Do you accept IMG applicants?

Of course, please submit all applications through ERAS. 

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What visas do you sponsor?

Only J1 visas. 

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What program do you use for interview scheduling?

Thalamus.

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What is the timeline for interview invites?

With several other EM residency programs, we will release interview invitations to selected applicants on the unified interview release date in October, and will then be able to schedule interviews starting 24 hours later, with additional rolling interview invitations to follow. 

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What is the application deadline?

Applications must be completed in ERAS by November 30th.  Final interview notification status will be released in mid-December.

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What constitutes a complete application?

Please include what medical school you attended, Dean's Letter, 3 letters of recommendation (SLOEs preferred, at least 1 SLOE required), USMLE Step 2/COMLEX Level 2 score, Personal Statement, research experience and outside activities. 

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Is this program accredited? Is this a 3 or 4 Year Program?  

Yes. This program is fully accredited by the ACGME. The residency is a four-year program.

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How are applicants selected? 

Only ERAS applications are accepted. Each application is holistically reviewed by several of the staff and "scored" in three broad categories: experiences, attributes and metrics. "Experiences" encompasses activities listed in ERAS including leadership activities, research experience, and advanced degrees. "Attributes" includes the personal statement, non-eSLOE letters of recommendation, perspective, and alignment with the program mission. "Metrics" includes several specific areas such as the medical school attended, the Medical Student Performance Evaluation (Dean's Letter), and eSLOEs. On the basis of this review, some applicants are invited to interview. Each applicant will interview with at least three faculty members. The final rank order list is created based on the application score, the interviews, and input from the Program Evaluation and Advisory Committee. All residency positions are offered through the NRMP.

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Does the date that I interview affect my position on the residency's Rank Order List? Should I plan to interview only in January, for example? 

Absolutely not. There is NO CORRELATION between the date that an applicant interviews in our program and their position on the rank order list. The importance of interviewing in January is a myth. See Martin-Lee LA, Park HW, Overton DL: Does Interview Date Affect Match List Position in the Emergency Medicine National Residency Matching Program Match? Acad Emerg Med 2000; 7:1022-26.

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Culture:

How is the DHREM unique amongst other emergency medicine residencies?  

The DHREM is a unique Emergency Medicine Residency Training Program in many ways. One of the important aspects of the program is support from the hospitals in the Denver community. Based out of Denver Health and affiliating with three other institutions, the DHREM can offer superior rotations in specialized areas of instruction, an exposure to the breadth of patient diversity (including socioeconomic status) and pathology, and an exposure to the breadth of practice styles of a large faculty. The emergency medicine experiences at the participating institutions are not redundant, but rather complementary. This residency program has been in existence since 1973 and has earned a reputation as being one of the best training programs in any specialty. The future of this residency program is brighter than ever. We have some of the most talented emergency medicine residents, very dedicated faculty, and an unmatched breadth of training environments within a single program.

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How much responsibility do residents have? 

The residents in our program have a lot of responsibility everywhere they rotate, with graduated responsibility commensurate with their level of training. Starting on day one of intern year, our interns step up to the head of the bed at the University for all critical patients with appropriate supervision by an EM3. As EM2s, our "Pullback" owns an entire zone at Denver Health and is primarily responsible for resuscitation of all critically ill medical patients. As EM3s at the University, residents serve as the senior leader in the department, supervising an EM2 resident, intern and any students rotating in the department. As EM4s, residents supervise the entire emergency department at Denver Health Medical Center, which entails staffing all patients with the students and interns, running trauma and medical resuscitations, providing medical direction to the paramedic division through the biophone for the city of Denver, and assuming primary care of the patients in our observation unit. 

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Who would do well at the DHREM? 

This is a residency program that asks a lot of its residents in an effort to push them to be the best clinicians possible. Residents who thrive demonstrate self-reliance, independence, responsibility, and pride in their work. Residents are not led by the hand, nor are they held back. They are encouraged, supported, and guided. All of the tools are available in the residency to allow residents to mature into superior practitioners and leaders of emergency medicine in any arena. In order to make the most of this experience, a resident should be highly motivated, focused, energetic, enthusiastic and willing to get involved in everything that is offered.

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What are the relations like with the other clinical services in the hospitals? 

Superior. The Emergency Medicine Residency prides itself on strong relations with other services. This residency has been in place since 1973 and has graduated 526 residents (as of Fall 2020). We also develop close relationships with our colleagues through our off-service rotations. We are well integrated within the system and the residency and the residents are highly respected within the "House of Medicine".

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Training Sites:

How many hospitals are staffed by the residents? 

There are four emergency departments that are covered by our emergency medicine residents.  These include Denver Health Medical Center (Level-1 Trauma, County), University Hospital (Level-1 Trauma, Academic), Saint Joseph Hospital (busy community site), Highlands Ranch Hospital (community site), and Children's Hospital Colorado (quaternary regional referral center).  At each hospital, our residents are supervised by board-certified emergency physicians. Please visit our "Training Sites" page for more detailed information.

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What do the different hospitals have to offer? ​

By rotating through these institutions, EM Residents are exposed to the full spectrum of patient pathology, insurance/socioeconomic status and hospital resource availability. Further, EM Residents work with a large number of Emergency Medicine Attendings with varying styles of practice.

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How much time in the residency is devoted to the emergency department? 

Approximately 60% of the residents' time is spent on ED rotations. The rest of the time is spent on our off-service rotations such as MICU, SICU, PICU, cardiology, anesthesiology, medicine, surgery, orthopedics, toxicology, labor and delivery, and prehospital EMS services.

 

Education:

Are there teaching opportunities for the residents? 

The residents continually serve as teachers for the rotating students and interns on clinical shifts, as well as for fellow EM residents. Each resident is also responsible for two formal didactic presentations to the other residents. EM faculty and residents have an opportunity to teach in multiple medical school elective courses including US courses, Wilderness Medicine Courses, and small group EKG didactics to name a few.  Additionally, there are multiple opportunities for teaching with the Paramedic School.

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What formal didactics are offered?

The core didactic curriculum is presented Wednesday mornings. All of the residents are freed from their clinical duties in the emergency department to attend the Wednesday morning didactic conferences. Residents rotating on non-emergency medicine rotations are relieved based on clinical duties and are able to attend about 70% of conferences. Visit our "Didactic Curriculum" page for more information.

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What research opportunities are available? 

There are a wide variety of opportunities at Denver Health and at the University. Basic science lab facilities are available at the University of Colorado; Multiple large databases for retrospective studies (including the Colorado trauma database and the Kaiser outcome database) are available; there are also numerous clinical study possibilities with an annual combined census of over 250,000 in the participating institutions. The DHREM staff and residents are prolific researchers. More detailed information can be found at www.denveremresearch.org.

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Career Development:

Do you have a resident mentoring program? 

Yes. Each EM resident is assigned to a faculty member for formal mentoring sessions. These assignments are done in correlation with your interests your intern year, each year after residents are given the choice to stay with their mentor or switch to someone new so that the resident receives the benefit of counsel from several members of the faculty. 

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How is the Residency Program governed? 

The DHREM is a single integrated program directed by a program director who is responsible to the Denver Health Graduate Medical Education Committee.  The program director chairs the Program Evaluation and Advisory Committee, which is very active in forging the overall direction of the residency. The DHREM Program Evaluation and Advisory Committee is composed of representatives from Denver Health Medical Center (the base institution and primary clinical site), the University of Colorado Hospital, Highlands Ranch Hosptial, Saint Joseph Hospital, the Children's Hospital Colorado, and resident representatives.

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What does the Program Evaluation and Advisory Committee do? 

The Program Evaluation and Advisory Committee nominates the Program Director, assists in the selection and evaluation of the residents, reviews faculty development, teaching privileges, indirect costs, expansion of the residency program, and elimination of rotations.  It also reviews the nominations for associate program director and the residency research director put forth by the program director, and acts on disciplinary actions of a resident in accordance with the policies and procedures of the DHREM. The Committee typically meets three times a year, in the fall, winter and spring quarter.

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How are the residents evaluated? How often? 

Residents receive feedback at the end of their clinical shifts and are available on an ongoing basis via TIPReport and include the resident's performance in specific areas, such as ACGME core competencies, technical skills, clinical knowledge, responsibility and interpersonal relations. There is also a space provided for individual comments and suggestions by the evaluator. Twice a year, the Program Advisory Committee meets to create a formal evaluation letter for each resident, which the resident then reviews with their class-specific associate program director.

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Do the residents get to evaluate the faculty and rotations? 

Yes, the residents evaluate each attending and rotation. These comments are consolidated into a letter format and given to the individual attendings and the directors of the services where the residents rotate. These evaluations are anonymous and are taken very seriously by the faculty.