Columbia University Medical Center consistently has been praised for the quality, innovation, and academic rigor of its educational programs, as well as for the unsurpassed excellence of its faculty. Home to approximately 2,900 students and 6,200 part-time and full-time faculty members, the Columbia University Medical Center campus includes four professional schools, as well as the biomedical sciences programs of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Pediatric Residency

The Pediatric Residency Program at the Children's Hospital of New York has a tradition of excellence in training residents to become outstanding general pediatricians, subspecialists, physician scientists, and academicians. We provide our residents a wide variety of training experiences in an environment that encourages independent thought with support by knowledgeable faculty educators. Our purpose is to create clinical scholars who are intellectually curious in all settings, from the laboratory to the hospital and to ambulatory practice.

One of our traditional strengths has been our busy inpatient services with a broad variety of diagnoses. This strength continues, and out inpatient services have a diverse patient population with children from the local community and a large subspecialty patient population from the surrounding tristate area. Virtually every type of patient is seen in the hospital -- ranging from asthma to alveolar proteinosis and from pertussis to transplant and post-op cardiology patients.

In addition to providing training in the hospital setting, we have broadened our training in the ambulatory setting. Our goal is lofty: we want to train skillful and caring physicians who view the patients in the context of family nd community, and who are educators as well as health care providers. We achieve this goal by having the residents participate in blended faculty-resident practices and place the resident as the central primary physician for the patient in both the outpatient and inpatient setting.

Our current residents come from varied backgrounds, training and education. All are committed to providing the best care possible and we are proud of them. We have provided our residents with exposure to a wide variety of training experiences in an environment that encourages independent thought with support by knowledgeable faculty educators. Our purpose has been to produce clinical scholars who are as intellectually curious and as demanding in ambulatory settings as they are in more traditional inpatient clinical settings.

First Year
In the first year of residency the house officer experiences intense clinical exposure and is directly responsible for his or her own patients. The majority of the time is spent on the inpatient services: There are two teams with a mix of patient ages and conditions. The attending staff on the wards are members of the faculty group practice, community pediatricians, and subspecialty staff. Attending on the inpatient service is considered an honor, and the attendings are dedicated to education and the highest quality of patient care. The attendings are available seven days a week; formal attending teaching rounds are held four to five days a week. The first-year resident is responsible for the initial workup of 25 to 40 new patients each month; interns perform the history and physical examination, make clinical decisions, write orders, and communicate with parents. There are also rotations through the well-baby nursery, cardiology, and ambulatory pediatrics. All interns participate in the teaching of medical students.

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Second Year
The second year of pediatric residency provides the resident the opportunity to consolidate his or her learning and to assume a greater role as supervisor and teacher of the interns and medical students. In this year, there is more time to pursue the academic aspects of pediatrics, through participation in morning Intake Rounds geared directly to the junior and senior residents. Each second-year resident spends one month as the teaching resident on the ward services; the second-year resident also takes night call as the supervising resident. One of the strong points of the second year is that residents develop their diagnostic and management skills by learning how to quickly assess and to stabilize patients who present to the emergency room. The Pediatric Emergency Room at The Children's Hospital of New York is one of the busiest of all volunteer hospitals in New York City, providing an exposure to a rich variety of medical and surgical disorders.

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Third Year
By the third year, the senior residents are major resources as supervisors and teachers in the training program. As supervisors, the senior residents refine leadership as well as medical skills and have primary responsibility for the daily management of the patients on the wards, in the emergency room, and in the intensive care units.

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Training of Pediatric Investigators

Basic and clinical research on diseases of children are a critical part of the overall mission of the Department of Pediatrics and Babies & Children's Hospital. The Department is ranked 8th in overall research funding among pediatric departments in the country; the training of future investigators who will pursue academic careers in clinical or basic research on pediatric diseases also has a very high priority. There are several programs and activities that are relevant. Resident applicants who are interested in pursuing an academic career should identify themselves during the application process. For such individuals, we will arrange special meetings with relevant faculty on the interview day.

Residents are afforded the opportunity to pursue basic science research and clinical investigation at Babies & Children's Hospital. These experiences are designed to allow residents to explore their interest in investigative careers and to select among the many available possibilities in basic and clinical research. Options for research experiences range from intensive, structured elective experiences to flexibility in the residency training schedule to permit early incorporation of research activities into the resident's training program. The elective experiences include exposure to ongoing clinical or basic research projects combined with relevant didactic experiences and work with a faculty mentor. One new elective combines specific educational sessions focusing on statistical and epidemiologic methods with members of the medical school's General Clinical Research Center and development of a research project. (This elective is sponsored by two faculty from the Neonatal and the Infectious Disease Divisions). The residency director should be contacted for additional information.

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This article is reported with thanks to Columbia University Medical Center.