Transitional Year Program Requirements

The Transitional Year Committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) sets requirements for all Transitional Year programs. These requirements are as follows:

• A minimum of 24 weeks of disciplines that provide fundamental clinical skills (Emergency Medicine, Family Practice, Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics or Surgery) plus:
• A minimum of 4 weeks of Emergency Medicine
• A minimum of 4 weeks (140 hours) of ambulatory care from Family Practice, Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, or Surgery
• A minimum of 8 weeks of elective

• The academic year at Harbor-UCLA is divided into 13 four-week blocks, including one for vacation.
• Vacation may be assigned to 1 four-week block or divided into 2 two-week periods scheduled during an Emergency Medicine rotation (so that continuity of patient care is not an issue).
• The educational goal is to provide each Transitional Year resident with an individualized schedule of 12 blocks of experience that will be optimal for entering their chosen specialty residency program in the succeeding year.
• Our training program meets the ACGME's fundamental clinical skills (FCS) requirement by 1 block of Emergency Medicine (also meets the Emergency Medicine requirement) plus 2 blocks of inpatient Internal Medicine (including a block of CCU/Cardiology), 2 blocks of General Surgery and the Ambulatory Care block.
• The Ambulatory Care requirement may be met by 1 block of clinics in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics or Family Medicine.
• Electives make up the remainder of the schedule. Elective experience is available from rotations such as Head & Neck Surgery, Neurology, Neurosurgery, OB/GYN, Orthopaedic Surgery, Surgical ICU, Pediatrics, Plastic Surgery, and Urology. One block of special electives is available from the list of services that do not have regular intern assignments such as Anesthesiology, Family Practice in-patient service, Ophthalmology, Pathology, Psychiatry, Radiology, the General Clinical Research Center (for experience in clinical research) and Public Health. Assignments to electives are based on the overall requests and priorities of the newly matched Transitional Year residents.

• A detailed questionnaire is sent to our newly matched Transitional Year residents. This questionnaire allows the resident to list numbers of blocks desired in each of the categories and to rank the available services in order of preference. As 6 blocks of rotations (ie. FCS) are required this leaves 5 electives and 1 special elective to be selected. There are more than 18 unique rotations to choose from to satisfy the 5 electives. Your schedule is constructed based on your preference and can ensure that you will not be assigned a rotation below your top 8 choices.
• Every effort is also made to meet requests for specific vacation periods.
• If there are issues concerning the assignment to services, it may always be discussed with the Program Director. We do our best to accommodate your educational goals.