Years & Structure
Like all other residency programs in KIMS, the Kuwaiti Board of Internal Medicine is currently a five-year program. Throughout those years, residents will be gradually given more responsibilities as they progress through their stages of training. Each academic year starts on October 1st and ends on September 30th.
Here's a breakdown of the number of months required in each rotation for every academic year as well as other activities in each year.
R1
- 6 months MTU
- 1 month CCU
- 1 month ER
- 4 months subspecialties
R2
- 6 months MTU
- 2 months ICU
- 4 months subspecialties
R3
- 6 months MTU
- 2 months CCU
- 4 months subspecialties
- Complete a group research project
R4
- 6 months MTU
- 2 months ICU
- 4 months subspecialties and electives
- Complete a group Quality Improvement project
- Start the longitudinal clinic (starts mid-year)
R5
- 6 months MTU
- 6 months subspecialties and electives
- Continue the longitudinal clinic (completes mid-year)
In addition to the per-year requirements listed above, a minimum of 1 month in each of the following 14 subspecialty rotations is required to complete the program:
- Community Medicine
- Endocrine & Diabetes
- Geriatrics
- Gastroenterology
- Hematology
- Hematological Oncology
- Infectious Diseases
- Medical Consultations
- Nephrology
- Neurology
- Obstetric Medicine
- Medical Oncology
- Respirology
- Rheumatology
Finally, residents who have completed or are near completion of their required rotations and are progressing well through their stages of training may choose to take some optional rotations such as Allergy & Immunology and Dermatology, or design their own elective rotation.
With recent changes to the structure of the program, most residents will be expected to complete their required rotations in their fourth year of training. The fifth year of the program will be a year where they demonstrate their leadership skills as "Acting Senior Registrars" and pursue extended electives in their areas of interest in Kuwait or abroad.
Each year, residents will be assigned to a main site where they will do at least 6 months of their rotations. Residents will still be able to take rotations outside of their main site. Before the beginning of each academic year, residents will be asked to score each site indicating their interest in the site as their main site. After site assignment, residents will then get a chance to give a score to each rotation indicating their interest in that rotation. In both cases, an algorithm is used to give residents their choices as much as possible.
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