Pediatric Hospitalist Fellowship

The Pediatric ACGME-Accredited Hospitalist Fellowship Program is designed to train candidates as diverse, qualified, well rounded physicians for a pediatric hospitalist career in an academic/tertiary care center or community hospital practice.

The long-term goals of the fellowship are to provide high quality training in patient and family-oriented hospitalized care, and to provide opportunities for additional growth in Hospital Medicine research and quality improvement endeavors. In addition, the program aims to develop fellows into future leaders in teaching, leadership, advocacy, and hospital administration.

The training rotations, opportunities, and focus areas are directed toward the culturally sensitive care of acutely ill, hospitalized children and their families in the diverse setting of beautiful Miami.

Eligible Candidates

The Nicklaus Children's Hospital Pediatric Hospitalist Fellowship Program is a two-year postdoctoral program. Eligible candidates include postdoctoral trainees (with M.D. or D.O. degrees) who have completed a minimum of 3 year Pediatric or 4 year Med-Peds residency training at an ACGME-accredited residency program. The program will recruit two trainees per year to start the first week of July of every academic year.

Curriculum

The pediatric hospitalist fellow will spend a third of their two-year training in non-clinical activities (e.g. research, QI, and teaching), a third in clinical work, and a third on an individualized curriculum based on their elective rotations.

Each fellows has a Career Mentor and a Research Mentor. The Career Mentor is typically the fellowship director, but maybe another hospitalist within the division, who meets with the fellow on a regular basis to help with career development including their leadership and teaching skills. The Research Mentor is a faculty member who has expertise in the fellow's research focus area. They may include hospitalists as well as other sub-specialists within the institution. Both the Career and Research Mentors report back to the Scholarship Oversight Committee (SOC) and the Clinical Competency Committee (CCC) on the progress of each fellow.

The fellows will function as junior faculty and participate in residents' morning reports, medical student lectures, Grand Rounds, Radiology conferences and other didactic lectures. They are expected to participate in the annual PHM Conference, the PHM annual Fellow’s Conference, as well as the institution’s annual Research Day.

Salary and Benefits

Compensation is commensurate with ACGME-equivalent programs.

PHM Fellowship Block Schedule

schedule
  • 13 total units (4 weeks per unit) per year.
  • PGY4 year will have: 1 Vacation unit, 4 clinical units, 4 research units and 4 individualized curriculum units
  • PGY5 year will have: 1 Vacation unit, 4 clinical units, 4 research units and 4 individualized curriculum units.
  • IC- track: can choose in between research or clinical track. The CT for PGY4 includes: Procedures, Sedation and Inpatient. The CT for PGY5 includes: ER, inpatient and sedation.
  • Electives: Infectious Disease, Pulmonology, Nephology, Endocrinology, Ophthalmology, Neurology, Hematology/Oncology, Gastroenterology, Cardiology, Genetics, Allergy/Immunology, Rheumatology, Pediatric Surgery, CICU, NICU, PICU, Radiology, Child Protection Team, Pain team, Global Health, Transport, or Sedation/Anesthesia.

Focus

In order to tailor the training to the fellow's area(s) of interest, he/she will be required to choose a focus area from the following list:

  1. Clinical Informatics
  2. Medical Education / Curriculum Development
  3. Care Coordination / Case Management
  4. Patient Safety / Medical Errors / Hand-off
  5. Sedation / Pain Management
  6. Global Health
  7. Administration

The chosen focus area will dictate:

  1. Research project topic
  2. QI project
  3. Hospital Committee assignments

Required Didactics

The fellow will have mandatory didactics spread over the course of the year. These include:

  • The Common Fellowship Curriculum lecture series: A series of educational topics common to all fellows such as: Adult learning theory, teaching how to teach, evaluation and feedback, dealing with the problem learner, Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), preparing creative lectures, abstracts, presentations, workshops and posters, professionalism, research methods, biostatistics, to name a few. These occur monthly and are required for all Nicklaus Children's Hospital fellows.
  • Institutional Fellows Research Mini-course
  • Nicklaus CME series: Attend weekly Grand Rounds and Radiology conferences.
  • Hospitalist Division Lectures: Present in the Division’s Journal Club, Root-Cause analysis, and Morbidity and Mortality meetings. Attend faculty led lectures with a focus on the business of medicine, caring for complex care patients, difficult conversations and more.
  • Web-based modules on practice management - (IPM) Introduction to the Practice of Medicine Modules from the AMA
  • IHI QI training
  • Simulation Sessions and Procedure Rotation
  • Pediatric Hospital Medicine Board Review and Self-Assessment Course in PGY-5 year
  • Pediatric Fundamentals of Critical Care Course

Additional Requirements

Each fellow will also be required to participate in the following:

  • Serve on two Hospital committees ( Evidence Based Council and one chosen committee based on the fellow’s focus area)
  • Attend the annual PHM Conference, the PHM annual Fellow’s Conference, as well as the institution’s Research Day
  • Completion of one QI cycle per academic year
  • Completion of a Research Project based on their focus area at the end of training

How to Apply

We participate in the ERAS Fellowship Application which opens for submissions on July 5th, 2023. We require applicants to submit a CV and three (3) letters of recommendation. Once applications are reviewed, selected applicants will be contacted to schedule an interview through the ERAS Scheduler. We are able to sponsor J1 visas only.

Pediatric Hospitalist Medicine Fellowships participate in the Pediatric Specialties Match. Please take note of the following NRMP dates:

  • August 23, 2023 – Match opens
  • November 15, 2023 – Rank order list deadline
  • November 29, 2023 – Match Day

Additional information can be found at:

Interested candidates should direct their inquiries to:

Melissa Clemente, MD (Melissa.Clemente@nicklaushealth.org)
Pediatric Hospitalist Fellowship, Program Director

Maria Behnam-Terneus, DO (mbehnam@nicklaushealth.org)
Pediatric Hospitalist Fellowship, Associate Program Director

Gloria Montecelo (Gloria.Montecelo@Nicklaushealth.org)
Pediatric Hospitalist Fellowship, Program Coordinator


About Our Team

The Pediatric Hospitalist Division began in 1997 and has had over 25 years of continuous growth. Currently, our group consists of 12 hospitalist attendings and a nurse practitioner. Our clinicians also work in the Global Health, Hospital Administration, Medical Education, Quality, and Sedation departments within the institution. All attendings are board certified in Pediatrics and are assistant clinical faculty at Florida International University, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. The division manages over 7,000 admissions per year at NCH and boast a high complex and diverse pathology patient case mix.