Training Sites
Print This Page
Your residency is composed of several areas providing comprehensive training in...
Inpatient Training
Of the 82,000-plus infants, children and adolescents treated at Palmetto Health Richland each year, a large number are admitted to Children's Hospital as inpatients.
The residency program provides a comprehensive, well-rounded experience in general and subspecialty pediatrics as well as neonatal services. Your level of responsibility increases with your post-graduate year (PGY).
PGY 1 residents, directed by senior residents and faculty, perform diagnostic procedures and formulate therapeutic plans. At any given time, a PGY 1 resident on inpatient service will manage an average of seven to eight patients, but no more than 10 at one time. The typical night call schedule for PGY 1 residents is every fourth to fifth night. For PGY 2 and PGY 3 residents, call varies from every fifth to seventh night. Throughout training, residents will have several no-call and shift months. This allows residents to pursue research and other educational opportunities of personal interest.
The inpatient service, directed by full-time academic generalists, offers a broad and diverse patient mix. Contributing to the inpatient diversity are referrals from a 17-county area, patients from the emergency department, Children's Hospital Outpatient Center, admissions of pediatric faculty subspecialists, and admissions from private pediatricians in the community. As a resident, you and the attending generalist will direct care with the subspecialist serving as a consultant.
Pediatric surgical specialists perform more than 4,000 procedures per year. You will have the opportunity to elect rotations in any of the pediatric subspecialty areas.
Ambulatory Medicine
Critical to successful pediatric training, ambulatory experience is a strong aspect of our Children's Hospital pediatric residency. The Children's Hospital Outpatient Center has about 16,000 visits each year and is staffed by general pediatricians. Operating under the group practice model, the center provides continuity between patients, residents and faculty.
Supplementing this experience are our pediatric specialty clinics...
- Assessment Recovery Center(sexual and physical abuse clinics)
- Adolescent and school-based clinics
- Allergy/Immunology
- Behavioral/Child Psychiatry
- Cardiology
- Dermatology
- Pediatric Orthopedics
- Developmental Disabilities
- Endocrinology/Metabolic
- Healthy Lifestyles(clinic for obesity and lipid disorders)
- Hemophilia and Sickle Cell Clinics
- HIV/AIDS
- Myelodysplasia
- Nephrology/Hypertension
- Neurology
- Otolaryngology
- Pulmonology/Cystic Fibrosis Center
- Rheumatology
- Sports Medicine
- Urology
Adolescent Medicine
The adolescent rotation is a one-month structured educational experience during your second year. Experiences include:
- Department of Juvenile Justice – health needs of incarcerated youth
- Teen Clinic – sexually transmitted diseases and a variety of gynecologic diseases
- School Health Clinic – health maintenance examinations, sports medicine issues, health promotion including nutritional issues, safety issues and sexual issues
- Healthy Lifestyles Clinic – lipid and obesity related disorders
- Sports Medicine clinics – along with local college training room and sporting events involvement
- A variety of other clinical settings to enhance the adolescent experience
Private Practice Continuity Program
As a pediatric resident, you are assimilated into one of several private pediatric groups as your "practice" for the duration of your three-year residency. Our Children's Hospital program was one of the first in the nation to offer this unique opportunity. Acting as a "junior partner" in the practice, you will experience all facets of office practice under the tutelage of your private pediatrician-mentor. You will practice in this office once or twice weekly and have your own assigned patients who come to the office for well visits on your scheduled work day.
Your mentor in the practice will regularly observe, critique and instruct you on ways to improve and enhance your performance. The private physician also is available for consultations about your patients and will share information on cases with you.
This continuity experience is invaluable because it gives you a more accurate and realistic view of private practice at work, including hands-on experience in the business side of medicine. The patients and parents you see in the Children's Hospital Outpatient Center often will have very different expectations and needs than do those patients seen in a private pediatrician's office. This broad experience will better prepare you for a career in any area of pediatrics you choose.
Level I Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
The eight-bed, Level I Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) handles more than 800 admissions per year. Your training entails primary management of the patients with supervision by full-time intensivists. You will have the opportunity to attain proficiency in arterial and venous line placement, airway and ventilator management, and monitoring and stabilizing critically-ill patients. A self-sufficient transport system enhances your acute care training.
You also will receive training in the Pediatric Intermediate Intensive Care Unit (PIICU), a six-bed unit for patients requiring step-down care.
Palmetto Health Richland is home to a pediatric transport team of pediatric critical-care nurses, respiratory therapists and EMS support personnel. The team uses a mobile critical care transport unit as well as air ambulance service to transport critically ill and injured infants and pediatric patients from a 17-county referral area to the Children's Hospital PICU at Palmetto Health Richland.
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), along with the special care and newborn nurseries, handles more than 2,000 in-house deliveries and about 200 neonatal transports each year. Both provide comprehensive primary and tertiary care to more than 700 NICU admissions each year.
In addition to training one-on-one with neonatologists who conduct daily rounds and provide teaching sessions, you will work with a team of nurse practitioners to provide care to neonates.
NICU services include...
- 24-hour in-house neonatologists;
- ECMO program, one of two hospitals in South Carolina with this life-saving equipment;
- High frequency ventilators and nitric oxide therapy; and
- "Stork"-Speedy Transport of Risky Kids-South Carolina's first regional neonatal transport ambulance.
Hematology/Oncology
Hematology/Oncology services provide inpatient care for more than 700 children and adolescents annually. We see about 35 percent of all newly diagnosed cancer patients in South Carolina, with an average inpatient census of five. In the hospital's Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, children with hemophilia and sickle cell disease are also followed.
On this rotation, residents have daily inpatient rounds with the hematology/oncology attending physician. Teaching focuses on comprehensive care and addresses issues relevant to medical, psychosocial, educational and recreational health.
Children's Emergency Center
Within Palmetto Health Richland's emergency department is a separate pediatric ED that operates 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week. Training in Pediatric ER is one-on-one with on-site faculty. This rotation covers all facets of pediatric medicine, emphasizing efficient triage, stabilization and treatment of children and adolescents with acute and emergent conditions. Last year we had more than 20,000 visits to our Children's Emergency Center.
Advocacy Program
To receive an appreciation for a variety of community experiences integral to the practice of pediatrics, residents have an opportunity to gain experience in these as well as other areas:
- S.C. Safe Kids
- Legislative activity with attendance at Advocacy Day
- Camps
- Health programs in local schools
- Rotations in a rural health center
- S.C. AAP meeting attendance, resident section and committees
- CHAMPIONS of Palmetto Health Children's Hospital (volunteer organization)
Elective Opportunities
Residents can choose from a wide range of pediatric electives, including...
- Allergy/Immunology
- Cardiology
- Critical Care
- Dermatology
- Developmental/Behavioral Pediatrics
- Emergency Medicine
- Endocrinology
- Gastroenterology
- Genetics
- Hematology/Oncology
- Infectious Disease
- Internal Medicine
- Nephrology
- Ophthalmology
- Orthopedics
- Otolaryngology
- Pharmacology
- Private Practice/Community Health
- Pulmonology
- Radiology
- Rheumatology
- Student Health/Adolescent Medicine
- Surgery
- Other electives can be pursued by special arrangements with the faculty.