Curriculum and Research

During the first 12 months of training, fellows rotate on Pediatric Surgery service and related clinical disciplines, which are designed to enhance the educational experience including:

• Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (1 month)
• Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (1 month)
• Oncology rotation at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (3 months)

The final 12 months of clinical education will be at the chief level, with responsibility for patient management, and semi-independent operative experience under appropriate supervision.

Fellows will be provided with primary responsibility, under the supervision of pediatric surgery faculty members, in the care of critically-ill surgical patients to allow them to acquire the requisite specialty-specific knowledge and skills to gain competence in all stages of care for these patients.

Fellows must document an appropriate breadth, volume, and balance of operative experience as a primary surgeon. Fellows must document a total of 800 major pediatric surgery procedure as surgeon and 90 non-op traumas during the program and log these cases on ACGME website. Fellows must also participate in a minimum of 50 Teaching Assistant cases, document care of 20 neonatal surgical patients, and 10 critically-ill pediatric surgical patients.

Fellows must document one half-day of outpatient experience weekly. The 1st and 2nd year Pediatric Surgery fellows will attend surgery clinics on Friday afternoon. Clinic begins at 12:30 pm. The Chief Fellow or 1st Year Fellow will run this clinic with faculty supervision.

Fellow’s will gain knowledge in the basic principles of research, including how research is conducted, evaluated, explained to patients, and applied to patient care. Fellows should participate in scholarly activity. There are educational resources allocated to facilitate fellow involvement in scholarly activity.