Residency Program | Advising

	Program director Andrew J. White, M.D., conducts Residents Report.

Each PL-1 is paired with a pediatric faculty member who will meet with the house officer regularly. The adviser provides formal feedback to the resident based on monthly attending evaluations of the resident, results of the American Board of Pediatrics In-Training Examination (given annually in July) and observations by residents, chief residents and other faculty. All teachers, including residents themselves, are encouraged to provide timely, constructive feedback during and after each rotation. Feedback from the resident concerning experiences with rotations or attendings is solicited monthly through a confidential report by the resident to the chairman of pediatrics. The adviser and/or the program director meets with the resident twice during the second year and again during the third year.

Career Counseling

Approximately 50 percent of residents completing training at Washington University/St. Louis Children's Hospital enter academic medicine and 50 percent enter general pediatric practice. Faculty at all levels are actively involved in helping residents identify a broad range of career opportunities.

The subspecialty experience at Washington University/St. Louis Children's Hospital is extensive, providing residents with an excellent general education that enables them to enter general pediatrics practice with confidence. It also provides important exposure to a wide range of types of medicine from which a decision regarding subspecialty fellowship choices can be made. For those residents who begin training with clearly defined research interests, our medical environment is richly endowed with faculty investigators/mentors and state-of-the-art research facilities. For those interested in pursuing general pediatrics, the COPE program not only provides valuable insight into the nuts and bolts of office-based practice, it also gives the residents the opportunity to apply the knowledge they gain in the hospital to the outpatient community setting.

The department offers a series of lectures and workshops designed to keep residents abreast of current medical practice models, including contract negotiations, ethical issues, cost effectiveness, quality assessment and risk management. Also addressed are topics of health care organization, which focus on financing and office practice management. Residents completing their training at Washington University/St. Louis Children's Hospital are actively recruited by fellowship directors and general practitioners across the country. Graduates of our program fill the ranks of leading academic medical centers throughout the United States and around the world.

House Staff Assistants

House staff assistants are located on each of the pediatric wards and are integral members of each ward team. Their responsibilities include coordination of patient testing and follow-up; retrieval of referring hospital test results, medical records and newborn screen results; planning discharges with physicians and nurses; and facilitating communications between residents and referring physicians, ancillary services, nursing and parents. By performing these and other duties, the house staff assistants improve the quality of care for children and allow residents more time for direct patient care, education, anticipatory guidance and participation in learning venues such as resident conferences, attending rounds and literature searches.

Support

The St. Louis Children's Hospital library maintains 60 current journal subscriptions, 1,930 monographs and 130 videos. Computer workstations provide access to e-mail, literature searches and the Internet. A professional medical librarian is available. With a networked environment throughout the hospital, online access to more than 40 full-text journals and several full-text pediatric textbooks is provided. The library may be used 24 hours a day. Free photocopy privileges and fast access to literature not maintained in the collection also are available.

Additionally, St. Louis Children's Hospital and Washington University have state-ofthe- art computer systems. Each nursing station has at least five workstations with 17-inch monitors that operate in a userfriendly, Windows-like UNIX system.

The electronic medical record of every patient, including discharge letters, radiology reports and lab reports, is easily accessible. All current inpatient data are accessible from any workstation, including real-time electronic flowsheets with vital signs, medications and lab results. Also, each workstation allows e-mail access, direct access to the Internet, and CD-ROM versions of The Red Book, PREP/Pediatrics in Review, Nelson's Pediatrics and other information resources.

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