Curriculum

• PL1
• PL2/PL3
• Sample Weekly Schedule for PL2s/PL3s

• CP&A PEDS PRACTICE:
  During regular patient sessions, you will see up to eight patients per session as a PL-2 and up to 10 patients per session as a PL-3. Sessions include patients of all ages from newborn to 21 years old, and a mix of well-child care, follow-up, and acute care visits.
  
• CONTINUITY CLINIC:
  During this patient session, you will start with a conference led by one of our faculty. Usually you have the same continuity clinic faculty preceptor for all three years of your residency.
  
• ELECTIVE (REACH):
  One full-day each week is given to structure as you choose to pursue advocacy, policy, global health, or research projects, or subspecialty clinic work. It can be part of a REACH project, or simply elective time.
  
• PSYCH/BEHAVIORAL CONSULT:
  During one of your clinical sessions each week, you have an hour set aside to have a longer visit with a patient who presents with psychological, psychiatric, behavioral, or learning issues.
  
• CONFERENCES:

  “Our lectures are always up-to-date and relevant to clinical issues.”

  • Primary Care Conference is held from 9 to 10:30 am every Wednesday and covers basic topics in primary care, often in our “journal club” format. Residents are often assigned to read the latest literature on an aspect of the topic, such as UTIs, and serve as “experts” on that aspect as cases are discussed. Each resident presents one of his/her own conferences during this time. These conferences are based on cases they have seen in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit or inpatient wards that hold particular relevance or lessons learned for the primary care setting. We also use Wednesday mornings for field trips to the AAP legislative office, schools, and Toys R’ Us (to examine baby equipment, safety equipment, etc).
    
  • Development, Behavior and Mental Health Conference follows from 10:30 to 11:30 am, where we discuss cases and common topics encountered in infant development, behavior and child psychiatry.
    
  • Adolescent Conference, held after lunch on Wednesday, reviews topics such as interviewing and confidentiality, sexuality, contraception, and sexually transmitted disease.
    
  • Visual Diagnosis is an informal session held every Friday over lunch. A curriculum of visual diagnosis cases prepared by one of our faculty is reviewed and discussed.
• ADOLESCENT MEDICINE PATIENTS:
  The Wednesday afternoon clinic session is mentored by our adolescent medicine specialist, Judy Ratner, MD, who runs the earlier conference and provides clinical supervision.
  
• COMMUNITY HEALTH EXPERIENCE:
  During the PL2 year, one clinical session per week is devoted to a community health experience, to provide you with a broader understanding of the healthcare of children in an underserved population. Below are examples of current sites:
  
  
  • Upper Cordozo Clinic: This practice provides residents with an experience working in the system of care that serves the underserved population of the Columbia Heights neighborhood of DC. While the CP&A practice serves a very diverse population, 25 percent of whom are insured through Medicaid and SCHIP, the Upper Cardozo Clinic sees patients who may not have insurance and for whom access to care is more challenging. This experience is only available if a resident has working proficiency in medical Spanish.
    
  • Rosemount Early Head Start: Rosemount is a bilingual (Spanish-English) Head Start Program that serves families in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC. You will become familiar with the structure of the program, then provide leadership in designing and delivering informational sessions for the families the program serves. There is no language requirement for this experience.
    
  • Cesar Chavez Elementary School: You will coordinate information sessions with elementary school children. This activity allows interaction with school children in the community outside of the clinical environment, giving residents a different perspective on child health. There is no language requirement for this experience.
  
  
• MENTOR MEETING: Once a week, each resident meets with one of our faculty to review cases, discuss career plans, and do literature searches on clinical questions that arise from patients seen in the practice.