University of Louisville

PUSH (Pediatricians Urging Safety and Health) 
Our resident-run child advocacy group is one of our biggest sources of pride! Our residents both learn about and actively participate in public policy, education and community outreach. We have an advocacy curriculum once a month where we cover a number of topics related to health disparities and the remainder of time is spent planning next steps and community engagement.

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Vaccine Hesitancy Communication Curriculum 
Our program is piloting an innovative curriculum to teach residents how to respectfully discuss vaccine hesitancy with parents and use specific strategies to encourage vaccine compliance.

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Center for Courageous Kids 
Residents have the opportunity to attend this camp for children with chronic illness and act as medical volunteers as well as healthcare providers. Some examples of the camps are physical disability week, diabetes, BraveHearts week (children with heart defects), autism, cerebral palsy, etc.

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Business, Leadership, Teaching Curriculum 
Lectures once a month – covers topics such as contract negotiation, personal budgeting, understanding insurance and malpractice coverage, and creating a CV.

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Evidence-Based Medicine Curriculum 
Including Journal Club and Morning Report - residents critically evaluate articles related to patient care and present them to the group. PREP Party - The new approach to board study where the residents work through board review questions that pertain to a suggested reading assignment for each month. The conference is led by a chief resident or a program director, and a guest faculty member attends from the specialty of the month to help facilitate discussion and expand on the questions/explanations. 

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Residents As Teachers Workshop 
Each intern participates in a one-day workshop devoted to teaching residents methods for teaching students and peers.

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Resident Interdisciplinary Clinical Cases (ICC) Facilitators 
Our ICC, facilitated by clinical faculty, affords the residents another teaching opportunity within the program. If interested, residents are allowed to co-facilitate with faculty members in this course, which marries the basic science information the students are currently learning with relevant clinical cases.

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Residency Program Business Meetings 
Where resident issues and ideas for program improvement are discussed openly. These occur a minimum of five times per year.

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Mentoring program
Each resident will choose a mentor during the first half of intern year. To facilitate pairings, residents are connected with educational leaders in their fields of interest during scheduled Career Exploration days on their outpatient Y-blocks throughout the first several months of the academic year. This allows mentoring relationships to develop more naturally based on shared interests. Overall, our goal is a mentorship dyad with similar interests both in and out of medicine as well as personality traits.  Residents and mentors meet independently throughout the year. Topics covered during these meetings include: clinical performance, program engagement and time management, personal wellness, lifelong learning, and planning for the future.

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Resident Leadership Council 
A group of Pediatric and Medicine/Pediatric residents, elected by their peers, who act as liaisons between the residents and the Office of Medical Education (OME). They directly participate in problem solving of any issues that arise during these meetings and also help relay important information from the OME to the residents. They also participate in reviewing the monthly resident schedules.

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National Meetings 
Funding is available to send a limited number of highly-motivated residents to national and regional meetings, such as the AAP-NCE, PAS, and Kentucky Chapter of the AAP meetings, as well as subspecialty meetings. Funding is also provided to send four residents to the AAP Legislative Conference annually.

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Scholarly Activity and Poster Session 
We give our residents a lot of flexibility in the type of scholarly activity they can complete. Residents can do clinical research but can also participate in curriculum development or advocacy projects. At the end of each academic year, senior residents showcase their Scholarly Activities in a poster presentation format for the entire Department of Pediatrics. Cash awards are given at the resident graduation ceremony to the top winners in several categories of scholarly activity.  In addition, a newly created Research Distinction Track provides increased mentorship, education, and expectations (from IRB creation to abstract submission to national meeting) to those who have specific interest in strengthening their scholarly activity experience during their residency (see question 11 below).

Check out the website to see examples of resident scholarly activities. 

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Procedure Rotation 
Interns will attend several hand-on, procedural skills and simulation sessions during outpatient Y-blocks during the early part of intern year. These sessions provide residents with a conceptual and experiential foundation in pediatric procedural medicine.  Thereafter, interns will have a two-week procedure rotation consisting of "on call" time as the first resident paged to perform procedures.  In prior years, residents on this rotation are getting an average of 66 procedures from peripheral and central lines, to lacerations, transport, intubations, splinting, I&D’s, and bladder/NG catheter placements.

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Battle Buddies 
As part of our wellness initiative, we pair interested interns with their own Battle Buddy in hopes to combat anxiety, depression, and physician fatigue. We recognize intern year is difficult and many interns need help to get through the year. Through their assigned Battle Buddy, they will have a go-to resident who can help them grow personally and professionally.