Welcome!
Our Pediatric Hospitalist Fellowship Program was established in 2014 and was ACGME-accredited in 2020. We have grown and now have two fellows per academic year since 2023. We have a 2-year training program, which offers exposure to high complexity and varied pathology in the multicultural environment of South Florida. One of our program strengths is having over 40 electives for each fellow to choose from for their individualized curriculum rotations. We are also proud of the great scholarly work each of our fellows complete during their fellowship due to the robust research and clinical opportunities at our institution.
Our Pediatric Hospitalist Fellowship Program is designed to train fellows as well-rounded physicians for a pediatric hospitalist career in an academic/tertiary care center or community hospital practice in today’s healthcare landscape. We are fortunate to serve a wide breath of patients from South Florida as well as families from South and Central Americas, the Caribbean, and beyond. Nicklaus Children’s is home to the largest pediatric residency in the Southeast with 84 residents. We also teach medical students from various schools and are affiliated with the Florida International University (FIU) Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. There are also 23 additional residency and fellowship training programs with 64 trainees within our Graduate Medical Education Department.
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 medical education, leadership, advocacy, global health, patient safety, and hospital administration. Our fellowship goals are also directed toward the culturally sensitive care of acutely ill, hospitalized children and their families in the diverse setting of beautiful Miami.
Curriculum
Our two-year fellowship program curriculum is divided into thirds. As such, each fellow will spend one-third of their time in non-clinical activities (e.g. research, QI, and teaching), another third in clinical work, and the last third on an individualized curriculum based on their career focus and aspirations. (Please see our detailed block schedule below).
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 or externally as well. Both the Career and Research Mentors report back to the Scholarship Oversight Committee (SOC) and the Clinical Competency Committee (CCC) on the unique progress of each fellow.
The fellows function as junior faculty and participate in resident education, medical student lectures, Grand Rounds, Radiology conferences and other didactic lectures. They also participate in the annual PHM Conference, the PHM annual Fellow’s Conference, the institution’s annual Research Day, amongst others.
PHM Fellowship Block 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: each fellows may choose between a research or clinical track. The CT for a PGY-4 includes: Procedures, Sedation and Inpatient. The CT for a PGY-5 includes: ER, inpatient and sedation rotations.
- 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, Community Hospitalist, Newborn, Medical Education, Pharmacy, Nutrition, amongst many others.
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:
- Clinical Informatics
- Medical Education / Curriculum Development
- Care Coordination / Case Management
- Patient Safety / Medical Errors / Hand-off
- Sedation / Pain Management
- Global Health
- Administration
The chosen focus area will then dictate a fellow’s:
- Research project(s) topic
- QI project(s)
- Hospital Committee assignments
Required Didactics
The fellow will have mandatory didactics spread over the course of the year. These include:
- Monthly Fellows Breakfast and Common Fellowship Curriculum lecture series: A series of educational topics common to all fellows such as: Adult learning theory, 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.
- NCHS Fellows Research Mini-course: Held in the fall for all incoming fellows.
- 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 throughout fellowship. 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 Board Review and Self-Assessment Course
- 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.
- Resident and medical student lectures.
Salary and Benefits
Compensation is commensurate with other ACGME-equivalent programs at our institution. For more information please visit our Fellowship Training Program Salaries & Benefits page.
Eligible Candidates
The Nicklaus Children's Hospital Pediatric Hospitalist Fellowship Program is a two-year program. Eligible candidates include postdoctoral trainees (with M.D. or D.O. degrees) who have completed a minimum of a 3-year Pediatric or 4 year Med-Peds residency training at an ACGME-accredited residency program. We recruit two fellows per year to begin fellowship training in the first week of July of every academic year.
How to Apply
We participate in the ERAS Fellowship Application, which opens for submissions on July 3rd 2024. We require applicants to submit an updated CV and 3 letters of recommendation (one must be from the residency program director). Once applications are reviewed, selected applicants will be contacted to schedule an interview through the ERAS Scheduler on or after August 5th. NCHS is 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 21, 2024 – Match opens
- November 20, 2024 – Rank order list deadline
- December 4, 2024 – Match Day
Additional information can be found at:
About Our Team
The Pediatric Hospitalist Division began in 1997 and has had over 25 years of continuous growth. Currently, our group consists of 15 hospitalist attendings and several hospitalist-trained nurse practitioners. 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 and a 70% underserved population.