Coaching, Mentorship and Career Planning

Colorado Med-Peds prioritizes mentorship early in residency by thoughtfully pairing each intern with a Med-Peds Faculty Coach. This coach is an individual with either shared lived experiences or academic interests whose role is to connect with residents at least three to four times a year. During these meetings, mentor-mentee pairs discuss matters both within and outside of residency with common topics including adapting to residency, career planning, and work-life balance. Mentors also serve as a great basis for networking, as they can often connect you with many other mentors specific to your career or research interests. These faculty coaches, who volunteer to serve this role for residents, are very well integrated into the Med-Peds community in Colorado and are deeply invested in the lives, wellness, and growth of our residents.

In addition to faculty mentorship, we have developed a built-in mechanism for peer mentorship between residents via the “clinic families”. These pairings, which consist of an individual from each residency class, work together to triage their clinic inboxes and will often share a panel of patients to facilitate continuity of care. They naturally become an avenue for mentorship, where intern and second years can look to their upper class peers for advice on resident success or career planning. Perhaps more importantly, they also become friends who can empathize with resident experiences and help you decompress and recover after difficult times.

Our dedication to mentorship is highlighted by our annual Med-Peds Career Night, during which medical students, applicants, and residents are invited to meet with Med-Peds-trained providers throughout Colorado. These faculty work in a variety of clinical settings and specialties and offer invaluable advice on different aspects of career planning. The Med-Peds community in Colorado is incredibly active and rapidly growing, with their spectrum of work spanning:

Hospital Medicine: There are currently several Med-Peds Hospitalists working locally through Kaiser Permanente, Denver Health, University of Colorado Hospitals, and Children’s Hospital Colorado treating both adult and pediatric populations. The development of the Med-Peds Consult Service, spearheaded by Dr. Aaron Manning, has solidified the Med-Peds precedence within the UCH system and offers a unique avenue of care for all interested dual hospitalists.

Primary Care: There are a plethora of Med-Peds primary care physicians working in academic, community, or private spaces throughout the state. They are uniquely qualified in seeing complex patient cases throughout the lifespan, and most often embody unique niches within healthcare including Care of Rural/Underserved Populations, Addiction Medicine, and Adolescent Care.  

Subspecialty Medicine: Med-Peds providers are well-represented across a number of adult and pediatric subspecialties in Denver. There are currently Med-Peds faculty/fellows within Adolescent Medicine, Allergy and Immunology, Cardiology, Adult Congenital Cardiology, Hematology-Oncology, Infectious Disease, Endocrinology, Nephrology, NICU, PICU, Pulmonary/Critical Care, and Sports Medicine. 

Please see the “Faculty” and “Alumni” sections under “About Us” for more details on Colorado’s Med-Peds network.