Rotations & Locations

Residents have the opportunity to work in different care settings at UCI Medical Center. This rotation is split up into different clinics every half day and includes musculoskeletal PM&R, general PM&R, neuromuscular, electrodiagnostics, musculoskeletal radiology, research/AAP Badges program, orthopedic trauma/fracture, orthopedic foot/ankle and orthopedic sports medicine. 

Residents will gain hands-on experience in the management of orthopedic conditions and perform electrodiagnostic studies, as well as palpation- and ultrasound-guided peripheral joint injections. They will manage patients with a variety of rehabilitation needs, including stroke, spinal cord injury, brain injury, amputation and many others. The radiology portion allows residents to spend time reading images with musculoskeletal radiology fellows and attendings. 

Residents will also have the opportunity to pursue research during this rotation and work on the AAP Badges Project.

This PGY-2 rotation is offered at the VA Long Beach Healthcare System. The VA setting allows residents to learn how to care for individuals with a chronic spinal cord injury (SCI).

During this SCI outpatient rotation, residents have the opportunity to work with attending physiatrists, kinesiotherapists and physical, occupational, recreational and speech therapists.

Residents become competent at SCI management via the SCI consult/diagnostic examination, therapy planning, quantified goal-setting, medical management and interventional treatments.

Initially, patients are seen for new evaluations, during which residents complete a review of the patients’ chief complaints and medical history, followed by a comprehensive and focused physical examination.

This enables residents to formulate a differential diagnosis and treatment plan for the SCI-related diagnosis. Residents will assess patients during annual evaluation appointments, which helps them understand the comprehensive management of patients with acute and chronic SCI conditions. Residents participate in various clinics, including a wheelchair clinic, a shoulder pain clinic, a wound clinic and a spasticity clinic.

This rotation takes place at the VA Long Beach Healthcare System. The VA setting allows residents to manage patients with acute and chronic musculoskeletal rehabilitation needs, including cardiopulmonary and orthopedic rehabilitation.

During this rotation, residents have the opportunity to work with attending physiatrists, kinesiotherapists, and physical and occupational therapists. Residents become competent at comprehensive outpatient musculoskeletal management via a specific diagnostic examination, therapy planning, quantified goal-setting, medical management and interventional treatments.

Initially, patients are seen as new consultation evaluations, where residents complete a review of the patients’ chief complaints and medical history, followed by a comprehensive and focused physical examination. This enables residents to formulate a differential diagnosis and treatment plan for the musculoskeletal-related diagnosis.

Residents also participate in a cardiac rehabilitation clinic during this rotation. The assigned resident completes cardiac rehab consultations and writes the orders for physical therapy and occupational therapy.

Many patients are managed holistically, and many return to the clinic for follow-up visits and interventional procedures, including ultrasound-guided procedures.

The skills that residents acquire during the musculoskeletal rehabilitation rotation are valuable to understand the comprehensive management of patients with acute and chronic musculoskeletal conditions.

The resident is supervised by a staff physiatrist.

This rotation takes place at UCI Medical Center’s Acute Rehabilitation Unit. UCI Medical Center, a designated Level I Trauma Center with an active trauma unit, also supports a regional burn center. In addition, the medical center houses comprehensive stroke and cancer centers.

The 14-bed acute rehabilitation unit admits more than 300 patients per year, drawn from UCI Medical Center, with a wide range of rehabilitation diagnoses, including traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke, malignancies, multiple trauma and amputations.

The PGY-2 resident on the ward works closely with the attending physicians, PGY-3 resident and the acute rehabilitation unit’s multidisciplinary team (nursing, therapy services, neuropsychology, nutrition, pharmacy and case management) to provide quality comprehensive care to inpatients.

The ward resident serves as the primary medical provider for the unit under the supervision and teaching of the attending physiatrist and PGY-3 resident. The resident physician also learns and experiences all aspects of leading an active acute rehabilitation unit, including team huddles, multidisciplinary team conferences and family meetings.

This rotation at MemorialCare’s Long Beach Medical Center allows residents to manage patients with spinal cord injuries and other medical/neurological/surgical conditions in the inpatient rehabilitation facility setting.

During this rotation, residents have the opportunity to work with an interdisciplinary team, including physiatrists, neurologists/internists, neuropsychologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, case managers, social workers and nursing staff.

This rotation is offered at MemorialCare’s Miller Children's Hospital Long Beach. During this rotation, residents will work exclusively with pediatric patients who have physical medicine and rehabilitation needs. Residents become competent at determining functional status for infants and children as they participate in the establishment of a diagnosis.

The time is split equally between outpatient clinics and the inpatient setting. Clinics include general pediatric rehabilitation, hypertonicity, spina bifida and other pediatric subspecialty clinics, including rheumatology, neurosurgery and orthopedics. The multidisciplinary nature of the clinics allows residents to learn from physiatrists, orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, urologists and rheumatologists. Residents also have the opportunity to participate in botulinum toxin injections as well as baclofen pump reprogramming and refills.

In this rotation, residents acquire skills that are valuable to understand the comprehensive management of infants and children in the field of PM&R.

The inpatient rehabilitation and PM&R consultation rotation at UCI Medical Center provides the resident with training in management of inpatient rehabilitation patients and consultative services for acute hospital inpatients. 

This rotation offers wide-ranging experiences evaluating and providing treatment recommendations for various neurological, orthopedic, neurosurgical and musculoskeletal conditions commonly encountered in acute inpatient settings. 

Because UCI Medical Center receives referrals from many regional hospitals, the consult resident gains experience evaluating and treating patients with severe injuries and complicated medical issues. 

While on the consultation service, the resident works closely with the primary team, in-hospital therapists and case management services to optimize post-acute care rehabilitation for patients. Working closely with the consult attending, residents conduct follow-ups and new PM&R consultations and work with the inpatient acute rehabilitation team to coordinate admission of appropriate inpatient rehabilitation patients. The resident gains valuable experience in longitudinal care of inpatients from the perspectives of PM&R consultative services. In addition, the resident serves as a mentor and supervisor to the PGY-2 resident managing the UCI acute rehabilitation unit.

This rotation is offered at the VA Long Beach Healthcare System. The VA setting allows residents to manage patients with prosthetic and orthotic needs and to participate in a full-service prosthetics and orthotics laboratory and clinic setting, including gait analysis, prosthetics and orthotics manufacturing, wheelchair clinic and maintenance of care.

During this rotation, residents will work with prosthetists, orthotists, attending physiatrists, kinesiotherapists, and physical and occupational therapists.

The resident focuses on developing clinical expertise in the fundamentals of amputee rehabilitation, wound care, prosthetic and orthotic prescription, gait abnormalities, and complications of prosthetic and orthotic use.

During this rotation, residents rotate through the PM&R outpatient clinic, as well as various specialty clinics, including:

• Prosthetic clinic: The resident evaluates patients for proper prosthetics. This is run with a supervising attending physician and a prosthetist.
• Wheelchair clinic: The resident evaluates patients for manual or electric wheelchairs. This clinic is managed by an attending physician and kinesiotherapist.
• Prevention of Amputation in Veterans Everywhere (PAVE) clinic: The resident provides the physiatric management of the post-amputation patient under the supervision of a staff physiatrist. It is a multidisciplinary prosthetic clinic that assists with ordering prostheses for new amputees and replacement prostheses for older amputees.

This rotation takes place at the VA Long Beach Healthcare System. The objectives are for residents to understand fundamental concepts in electrodiagnostic medicine and to perform and interpret basic nerve conduction studies/EMG cases.

Common diagnoses encountered include radiculopathy, carpal tunnel syndrome, mononeuropathy, polyneuropathy and plexopathy.

This rotation is offered at the Center for Pain & Wellness at the Joe C. Wen & Family Center for Advanced Care. This setting allows residents to manage patients with acute and chronic pain conditions. During this rotation, residents work with an interdisciplinary team, including physiatrists, anesthesiologists and pain fellows.

Residents become competent at comprehensive outpatient pain management via many modalities, including opioid and adjunctive pain medications, and non-interventional and interventional treatments.

Most patients are initially seen as new patient evaluations, where a review of the patient’s pain history and presentation, along with a thorough physical examination, allows residents to formulate a comprehensive differential diagnosis and treatment plan for the pain etiology.

Many patients are managed holistically, and many return to the clinic for follow-up visits and interventional procedures. 

There is an opportunity to spend one week with the acute pain service consult team at UCI Medical Center.

Residents also have four weeks during this block dedicated to elective time. This time can be spent on any service staffed by UC Irvine attending faculty. Residents have elected to do rotations in sports medicine, pain medicine, pediatric rehabilitation, radiology and research.

During the outpatient rotation experience, residents have the opportunity to work in different outpatient clinics at UCI Health, including musculoskeletal PM&R, general PM&R, pain PM&R and electrodiagnostics. Residents also have the opportunity to choose an elective clinic or opt for research for one half day per week. This can include additional experiences in other departments within UC Irvine, depending on availability, such as acute pain management, neuromuscular clinic, stroke clinic, consultations, integrative medicine and more. The rotation aims to provide a variety of outpatient and procedural experiences that residents may encounter in their own practice after graduation. As a PGY-4, there are increased expectations for independent patient management and supervision/teaching of junior residents and medical students throughout the rotation.

This rotation at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center allows residents to manage patients with brain injuries, strokes and other general inpatient rehabilitation diagnoses.

During this rotation, residents work with an interdisciplinary team, including physiatrists, hospitalists/internists, neuropsychologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech therapists.

This rotation allows the resident to mentor a PGY-2 resident.

The rotation takes place at the VA Long Beach Healthcare System, where residents rotate through the  interventional pain and musculoskeletal clinics. 

Patients are seen for new consultation evaluations, where residents complete a review of the patients’ chief complaints and medical history, followed by a comprehensive physical examination. This enables residents to formulate a differential diagnosis and treatment plan for their musculoskeletal-related diagnosis. Patients are also seen for follow ups for these diagnoses and post-procedure evaluations. 

In the interventional pain clinic, residents have the opportunity to work with both anesthesia- and physiatry-trained pain attendings to further practice their interventional spine and peripheral joint procedures using fluoroscopy and ultrasound guidance. 

In the musculoskeletal clinics, the PGY-4 resident will be working closely with PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents, with a greater emphasis on autonomy, supervision of junior residents and further improvement of various injections, with and without ultrasound guidance. During this rotation, residents work with attending physiatrists, kinesiotherapists, physical therapists and occupational therapists. 

Residents become competent at comprehensive outpatient musculoskeletal and pain management via a specific diagnostic examination, therapy planning, quantified goal-setting, medical management and interventional treatments.

This rotation takes place at the VA Long Beach Healthcare System.

Residents continue their electrodiagnostic training and gain greater in-depth knowledge by performing and interpreting more moderate to complex cases.

Residents become more proficient with technical skills and develop more independence, providing supervision and teaching to the PGY-3 resident.

During this consultation and electrodiagnostic rotation experience, residents have the opportunity to work in the outpatient and inpatient settings. This simulates the mix of responsibilities that residents may encounter after graduation. The residents will provide consultative services to patients at the UCI Medical Center with a variety of diagnoses, including burn, spinal cord injury, brain injury, amputations, trauma, stroke, cancer, spasticity, joint replacements and more. Residents will also have two half days of electrodiagnostic clinic during this rotation.

UCI Medical Center provides comprehensive rehabilitation and specialized care through the following services:

• Inpatient Acute Rehabilitation Unit (ARU)
• Inpatient PM&R Consultations
• Burn Rehabilitation
• Pain Management
• Palliative Care
• Research

The VA Long Beach Medical Center offers a wide range of specialized services to support the rehabilitation and well-being of veterans.

These include:

• Outpatient Musculoskeletal Practice
• Electromyography (EMG)
• Interventional Pain Practice
• Outpatient Spinal Cord Injury
• Orthopedic Rehabilitation
• Radiology
• Prosthetics and Orthotics: BRACE clinic and Prevention of Amputation in Veterans Everywhere (PAVE)
• Wheelchair Clinic
• Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation
• Palliative Care

Long Beach Memorial Medical Center offers a range of rehabilitation services to support patients at various stages of recovery, including:

• Inpatient Rehabilitation
• Inpatient Consultation
• Pediatric Rehabilitation (Inpatient and Outpatient)
• Stroke and Brain Injury Rehabilitation