Professionalism and Discipline Policy

Title: Professionalism  Policy

Purpose: To describe the standards of performance in the residency training program related to attendance and administrative responsibilities. 

Responsible Parties: Faculty and Residents of the UPSOM Department of Ophthalmology

Effective: July 1, 2013

Policy

Professionalism Policy

Last Update: February 10, 2013

Administrative responsibilities are vital to the practice of medicine.  They are critical to patient care and to the maintenance of the Residency Program.  Throughout the residency there are numerous administrative and patient care tasks that must be completed.  Failure to do so violates the essence of professionalism, one of the six core competencies.

Residents will be responsible for the following:

  • Daily completion of patient encounter documentation and surgical operative notes.
  • Answering pagers in a timely fashion
  • Pages should be returned immediately and no later than 5 minutes
  • On time arrival for
  • Morning conferences
  • Clinical experiences
  • Operative experiences
  • Pathology sessions
  • Contact lens clinical sessions
  • Surgical wetlabs
  • Grand Rounds
  • Pittsburgh Ophthalmology Society meetings
  • Journal Clubs
  • Daily morning conferences and weekly Grand Rounds
  • Residents must maintain attendance at the following levels:
  • 95% PGY-2
  • 85% PGY-3
  • 75% PGY-4
  • Attendance will be calculated on a monthly basis
  • First-time failure to meet the monthly requirement will result in a written warning from the program coordinator
  • A second failure to meet the monthly requirement will result in an additional in-house call assignment
  • Residents are excused from conference if they are on leave, in New Mexico, or expected to be primary surgeon on a surgical case prior to 8 am. In addition, a resident may be excused from morning conference if they are involved with urgent patient care. In these cases, PGY-2 residents should make every effort to sign out to a PGY-4 resident for the period of the conference.
  • Residents must email the program coordinator to explain their absence from conference, including for any of the above reasons.
  • Weekly updating of online ACGME surgical log
  • Biweekly verification of duty hours on GME ROCS and compliance with duty hour rules
  • Completion of post rotation evaluations of faculty within 2 weeks of rotation completion
  • Completion of self-assessment and peer-assessment forms
  • Due date announced via email
  • Must be completed prior to semi-annual review with program director
  • Annual program evaluations
  • Due date announced via email
  • Completion of post conference block quizzes and make-up quizzes.
  • Residents must notify the program coordinator and director if they cannot complete the quiz according to schedule
  • Residents must arrange for and complete make-up quizzes within 3 weeks of notification of the need to take a make-up quiz
  • Complete institutional administrative requirements (e.g. online compliance modules) within required deadlines.
  • Complete published scholarly project deadlines according to published guidelines
  • Pathology assignments
  • completion of independent work associated with weekly sessions.
  • Additional administrative tasks assigned by the program director and communicated to residents by the program director or coordinator.
  • Regular checking of UPMC Email and departmental mailboxes.

If a resident fails to complete any of the above responsibilities they will receive a written reminder from the program coordinator. Residents must work to complete the requirement immediately. Continued to failure to complete the requirement will result in the assignment of an additional in-house call.

Repeated violations of the professionalism policy will result in a meeting with the program director and the resident will be placed on administrative probation for a period of three months.
Administrative probation is a residency specific corrective action that is not reportable and does not become part of the permanent record.
Violation of the professionalism policy while on administrative probation will result in probation for three months.
Probation is a specific remediation that is reportable for the purposes of obtaining a license, obtaining privileges at a hospital or applying to participate with an insurance carrier.
Probation becomes part of a resident’s permanent record.
Violation of the professionalism policy during probation may result in final actions, including failure to be promoted, dismissal at year’s end, and termination of employment.