The overall program goals and objectives are to develop skilled and competent endocrinologists who demonstrate excellence in each of the six general competencies that have been identified by ACGME, placed in the context of providing optimal care for patients with endocrine and metabolic disorders.

Education and Curriculum Overview

Overall Curriculum Requirements
  • Endocrine Continuity Clinic:  1st year - 2 clinics per week; 2nd year - 2 clinics per week 
  • VA (Kernersville) Outpatient Clinic: ~ 19 weeks per year
  • Endocrine Consults: ~ 14 weeks per year
  • Elective/Selective Months: ~ 19 weeks per year

Continuity Clinic Experience

The outpatient activities of the fellowship reflect the fact that 90% of the practice of endocrinology occurs in the ambulatory setting. Thus, an extensive and thorough experience in the outpatient setting is critical to the fellowship training experience in endocrinology. The outpatient experience is an important facet of the training program, permitting the trainee to fully explore study and have personal experience with the greatest number of endocrine disorders. Fellows will develop their own patient panel over the 24-month training period. Fellows do not have continuity clinic while on call.

Consult Experience

The educational purpose of the fellow's inpatient consultative duties relates to a critical responsibility of the endocrinologist - the role of serving as consultant for other physicians in the management of sick hospitalized patients with endocrine disorders. Clearly, the endocrine problems seen in the inpatient setting are more acute, more severe, and at times more enigmatic than the typically more chronic diseases seen in the outpatient arena.  Time considerations and severity of disease call for more speed in decision-making than the typical outpatient consultation; and the complexity of patients with multisystem disease can make the sorting out of endocrine problems a particular challenge. 


Elective Experience

The educational purpose of the elective blocks is to provide additional training and expertise from specialists outside of Adult Endocrinology to enhance the development of clinical competence in Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism. 

Research and QI Opportunities 

The purpose of the research training associated with the Fellowship in Endocrinology and Metabolism at the Wake Forest School of Medicine is to provide a broad-based research opportunity even if their ultimate goal is not a career in research and academic medicine. We realize that each fellow will have variable research, and we wish to be able to provide a program that will accommodate all forms of such interest from basic science to QI projects. Each fellow will be expected to complete at least one research/QI project prior to graduation. At a minimum, an aggregate of at least 4 months is available to the fellow to accomplish the research goals.

Endocrinology Fellowship Program Research

The research time will be longitudinal during the 2-year training period with additional research blocks available. Each fellow will have a research mentor and have access to IHI Open School which is a growing catalog of online courses that teaches the foundations of improvement, safety, system design, and leadership. Completion of the basic certification program will provide you the knowledge and skills to perform a QI project.