Our Residency
Our program philosophy centers on a sense of balance. This balance is pursued not only between primary and tertiary care, but between multiple attitudes and emphases. Primary care is a critical component of our experience, one third to one quarter of our graduates entering primary care fields upon completion of training. We also take enormous pride in the exceptional subspecialty experiences we offer and the percent of our residents who will pursue the entire range of subspecialty careers after residency. Our graduates who choose to pursue fellowship training go on to the top programs in the nation.
Equally important is our program's balance between service and education. We believe that residents gain important perspective by learning from the bedside, conference, simulation lab, and in the communities in which they work. Our daily conferences are beloved spaces for trainees and faculty to unpack cases from across our services and are a protected time where pagers and phones are held. We encourage our residents’ involvement in the lives of children and society through our longitudinal advocacy curriculum, support for advocacy projects, research and domestic and global health opportunities.
Through our program directors and Residency Committee (a group of residents and faculty charged with program oversight), we work to facilitate a culture of open communication, problem-solving, and constant striving to build our program in the most thoughtful, intentional, and reflective way possible. There is a prevailing notion of "co-ownership" within our program. The residents are involved in our program's system of evaluation and change to ensure continual personal and programmatic improvement. Changes in the residency program must be predicated on educational value, not staffing needs. We believe that this approach furthers resident investment in the experience and a stronger program overall.
Year to Year
First Year
The goals of first year are to acquire foundational medical skills in pediatrics by developing clinical efficiency in patient care. During that time, residents also perfect their abilities to work as members of interdisciplinary care teams across outpatient and inpatient health care environments.
First-year residents rotate through general medicine services as well as inpatient, consult, and outpatient subspecialty experiences at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, as well as the normal newborn nursery and neonatal intensive care units at Prentice Women's Hospital. Several months of outpatient primary care, a month in the emergency department and integrated experiences in pediatric mental health, developmental-behavioral pediatrics, advocacy and community health round out the first-year. See the first-year schedule.
Each first-year resident has a designated chief, associate program director, and faculty adviser who help guide their interests. In addition to orientation, all PL-1 residents have monthly simulation training, a full day of dedicated resuscitation and procedural simulation in the fall, an off-site day-long retreat in the winter as well as dedicated intern vacation in the spring to celebrate the end of the first year as a class.
Second Year
The second year provides beginning supervisory and leadership experiences, continuing experience in general pediatrics and more subspecialty experiences. During the second year, residents gain greater independence and responsibility as they transition into leadership roles with first-year residents and medical students.
Experiences in the second year include assignments in the neonatal and pediatric intensive care units, hematology-oncology, and supervisory roles in the subspecialty services, emergency department and more focused time on pediatric mental health and developmental-behavioral pediatrics, as well as elective time. See the second year schedule.
The second year is critical to the academic maturation of the resident and links the core curriculum of the first year with the supervisory leadership role of the third year. A two-day PL-2 retreat in the fall to a local resort sponsored by the program is used to help this transition by focusing on leadership and career development and dedicated time with faculty for program strategic planning.
Third Year
The third year is the key leadership year when residents spend more than a third of the year supervising the major services at Lurie Children's. The third-year supervisory resident "runs the show" in the manner of a true "resident-run" environment. The remaining portion of the year are spent on Y-weeks and electives. See the third-year schedule.
The elective time in the third year is designed to meet individual goals, whether spent in subspecialty training, research or private practice with a preceptor. Some third-year residents do international electives, including several recent residents who have worked at a hospital in Tanzania.
As the third year comes to an end, residents spend time maximizing proficiency as they prepare for their careers. In the spring of the third year, residents culminate the work on their senior research projects by presenting to the housestaff and pediatric faculty during grand rounds.
Pediatric Residency Training Program Requirements
Pediatric Residency Program Technical Standards for Trainees
The following sections are based on the McGaw Institutional Technical Standards for GME Trainees with the addition of data specific to the Pediatric Residency Program at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Although there are generic portions to this document, the term “trainees” refers to pediatric residents.
Overview
Graduate Medical Education (GME) training is an essential dimension of the transformation of the medical student to the independent practitioner along the continuum of medical education. It is physically, emotionally, and intellectually demanding, and requires longitudinally-concentrated effort on the part of the trainee.
The specialty education of physicians to practice independently is experiential, and necessarily occurs within the context of the health care delivery system. Developing the skills, knowledge, and attitudes leading to proficiency in all the domains of clinical competency. For the trainee, the essential learning activity is interaction with patients under the guidance and supervision of attending physician who give value, context, and meaning to those interactions. As trainees gain experience and demonstrate growth in their clinical competency, they assume roles that permit them to exercise those skills with greater independence. This concept, graded and progressive responsibility, is one of the core tenets of American graduate medical education. Supervision in the setting of graduate medical education has the goals of assuring the provision of safe and effective care to the individual patient; assuring each trainee’s development of the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required to enter the unsupervised practice of medicine; and establishing a foundation for continued professional growth.
From an institutional standpoint, GME Trainees (Trainees) include all Residents and Fellows participating in graduate medical education at the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. This includes those programs not accredited by the ACGME (i.e. “non-standard programs”).
Prerequisites
- Trainees must conform to any and all requirements documented in their training contract.
- All trainees must have passed Step II of the USMLE
- Trainees must maintain a valid medical license in the State of Illinois.
Professionalism
- Trainees must be familiar with and comply with McGaw Medical Center (McGaw) policies and procedures, as well as those additional policies and procedures specific to the Pediatric Residency program.
- Trainees must be familiar with and comply with any hospital specific policies and procedures while on rotations at those training sites.
- Trainees must comply with all documentation and educational requirements of the ACGME, McGaw, or any hospital at which they are training in a timely fashion.
- Trainees must exhibit a high degree of professionalism when communicating and interacting with all members of the medical community and patients.
- Trainees must exhibit a high degree of professionalism when documenting or utilizing the electronic medical record (EMR).
- Trainees must comply with the Safe and Healthy Learning policy of McGaw.
- Trainees must honestly and accurately track, document, and report duty hours worked.
- Trainees must report any variance from ACGME or program duty hour limits to the Program Director and if recurrent then to the DIO/Associate Dean of GME.
- Trainees must report any problems with fatigue, illness, or any other impairments that could affect their ability to perform their duties to the Program Director in a timely fashion.
- Trainees must refrain from all illicit or illegal drug use.
Clinical Duties
- Trainees will participate in training activities following a rotation schedule as assigned by the program.
- Trainees will demonstrate an increasing degree of autonomy and independence as defined by the program.
- Trainees will carry a standard patient case load as assigned by the program.
- Trainees will take night call on a schedule as assigned by the program.
- Trainees will supervise and participate in the education of other trainees and/or medical students as assigned by the program.
- Trainees will supervise other trainees as assigned by the program.
- Trainees must perform skills (medical, procedural, and other) as defined by their program with progressive competence and independence appropriate to their training level (ability to perform skillfully, safely, independently, and with the appropriate indication) as defined by the program.
Other Education
- Trainees will actively participate in the program specific didactic curriculum as assigned by the program.
- Trainees will engage in adult independent learning while off site, which may include some nights and weekends to augment the program’s didactic curriculum including reading and preparation of presentations.
- Trainees will participate in any self-evaluative processes including “in-service examinations” or simulation exercises.
- Trainees will participate in any remediation process as assigned by the program under McGaw disciplinary action policies.
For more information on McGaw Policies and housestaff resources including benefits, stipend, licenses and visa, and educational resources please visit: