As first year residents, pediatric interns learn the basic principles and practices of pediatric medicine through directly supervised patient care on the inpatient and outpatient clinical services. Interns rotate on the Pedaiatric Hospital Medicine ward teams, the Newborn Nursery and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The Inpatient Pediatric Service exposes residents to a wide variety of acute pediatric problems, as well as, acute and chronic illnesses for chronically ill or disabled children. UTMB delivers over 6,200 infants annually, giving our residents excellent neonatal training in our nursery as well as our Level 4 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  Residents participate in daily work rounds and teaching conferences with attendings during each of these rotations. 

Outpatient experiences include rotations through the UTMB Primary Care, Acute Care, as well as Specialty Care Clinics.  The General Pediatrics I rotation is designed for the resident to improve knowledge of normal development and skills for well-child visits and anticipatory guidance. In addition, the Adolescent Medicine rotation exposes residents to multidisciplinary teen care. Throughout all three years of training, residents spend at least one half-day per Y-week caring for continuity patients, which they follow throughout their years of training.

During the PGY-2 year, residents participate in a structured curriculum covering continuity of care, and various other essential elements of primary and secondary pediatric outpatient care. Diverse clinical settings are used for the resident to put education into action, all under the supervision of experienced faculty clinician-educators. Residents also participate in specialized multidisciplinary clinics, neonatal and pediatric intensive care units, general pediatric hospital medicine and newborn nursery care. During this year, residents play in important supervisory role in mother/baby, hospital medicine and neonatal intensive care units.

Our unique School Health and Community Pediatrics Program offers PGY-2 residents additional educational experiences serving as a school consultant and physician liaison with three of our local school districts. This program introduces residents to school and community health issues and demonstrates to them how to consult with community organizations and services that provide child health services (systems-based practice).

Residents are also introduced to the principles of quality improvement and contribute to a quality improvement project.

The remainder of the year is devoted to electives, continued participation in continuity care clinics, and the development and implementation of resident scholarly projects.

During the third year, the residents’ education program focuses on providing individualized training in preparation of their career path or fellowship training, as well as continuing the role of teaching and supervision of junior residents and medical students. The third-year resident rotates as a supervisor on the hospital medicine service, the emergency department, the intensive care unit and multiple subspecialty services.

There is considerable time in this year for individualized rotations to tailor the end of their training to reflect areas of interest or future career decisions.

Resident scholarly projects are completed in the spring of the third year and presented at the Annual Resident Research Forum.