Welcome
The UCSD Department of Pediatrics offers many ACGME-accredited fellowships in pediatric subspecialties in conjunction with Rady Children¹s Hospital. Our fellowships aim to train academic leaders and educators with exceptional competence in clinical care and research.
Currently, our programs are in the following sub-specialties:
Clinical Exposure at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego
Most fellowships are 3 years long, in compliance with ACGME requirements. Clinical fellows at Rady Children's Hospital benefit from exposure to the majority of children requiring inpatient hospitalization in San Diego and Imperial Counties, a catchment area of over 3 million people with exceptional ethnic and socioeconomic diversity.
Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego serves as the region's only Level 1 Trauma Center for children, and boasts a superb Level III nursery. Fellow proficiency is also boosted by exposure to children undergoing bone marrow, kidney and living-donor liver transplants.
Research Opportunities
Research opportunities are vast, with many fellows taking advantage of basic research opportunities available at UCSD, or the nearby Burnham, Scripps or Salk Research Institutes. Many fellows are supported by institutional NIH training grants, philanthropic foundation funds, or recent support from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (stem cells). For those pursuing clinical research projects, progress is facilitated by unfettered access to the clinical resources at Rady Children's Hospital, and availability of the longstanding General Clinical Research Center at UCSD. Additionally, fellows are afforded the opportunity to acquire and hone clinical research skills by enrollment in the CREST (Clinical Research Effectiveness through Supplemental Training course at UCSD). This modular curriculum delivers critical training in patient-oriented research, biostatistics, and epidemiology.
UCSD Pediatrics Fellow as Clinician Educator Track (FACET)
The UCSD Pediatrics Fellow as Clinician Educator Track is a longitudinal track that provides training in medical education methods, scholarship, and career mentorship to our pediatric fellows. It is open to all UCSD Pediatric fellows who have at least 2 years of fellowship left on July 1 on the year of their application.
Goals: This 24-month track will support pediatric fellows to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to become successful medical educators and prepare them for careers as medical education scholars.
Objectives: Upon completion of FACET, fellows will be able to:
- Apply teaching methods for different situations, such as small groups, bedside teaching, lectures, etc
- Develop a curriculum
- Design an educational scholarly project
Outcome: Upon completion of FACET, fellows will be awarded a certificate of completion and graduate from fellowship with a distinction in Medical Education.
Components of FACET:
- Core Curriculum
- Once a month in person group didactics and workshops on:
- Teaching (small group, bedside, lectures)
- Curriculum development
- Medical education scholarly work
- Career advancement in medical education, etc
- Experiential Learning
- Shadowing Master Clinicians (Programs (ucsd.edu))
- Medical student teaching (co-teaching ESS and PBL)
- Resident teaching (AM report, Intern BP, resident school, noon conference, etc)
- Observed Teaching Sessions with Feedback
- Expert clinician educators and peers will observe teaching sessions and provide feedback on teaching methods using a standardized feedback form
- Scholarly Project (optional)
- Medical Education mentorship will be provided
- Must be approved by each fellow’s Scholarship Oversight Committee as this may serve as your fellowship scholarly work
- Local or national presentation
Application Process:
Part I:
Personal statement describing why you would like to participate in FACET, your interest in Medical Education, your education experience, and your expected goals and outcomes. No more than 1 page.
Part II (optional):
If applying to participate in the scholarly work component of FACET, please describe your proposal for your medical education research project including project title, aims, and proposed mentor (if you have one in mind). No more than one page.
Part III:
Please include your CV or biosketch.
Part IV:
A brief letter of support from your Program Director. The letter should indicate support for the fellow’s participation in the Medical Education track including protected time for participation and the division’s support for the $1500 fee/participating fellow. Please have your Program Director email their letter of support to Dr. Jennifer Yu at
jyu@rchsd.org.
Please submit your application as one PDF (except the letter of support) no later than March 13, 2023, to Dr. Jennifer Yu at
jyu@rchsd.orgPediatric Fellow Research Conference
A department-wide Pediatric Fellow Research Conference is attended by all medical fellows supported by the Department. This bi-weekly 2-hour conference provides opportunity for fellows to network, troubleshoot and hone their presentation skills. Lectures are provided by experts on practical and necessary topics such as mentoring, picking a research topic, human subjects protection and writing an IRB, writing successful grants and manuscripts and negotiating positions in academia. Fellows receive the benefit of experience from their colleagues and realize the trials and tribulations of career and research progress. Fellows also benefit from the highest quality weekly Grand Rounds at Rady Children's Hospital, and from their subspecialty specific conferences such as journal club, case conference, morbidity and mortality, and research conferences.
Housestaff Policies, Guidelines, & Sample Documents
Information about UCSD policies and procedures, housestaff benefits, licensure and registration is available on the Office of Graduate Medical Education website.