Program Overview

Outpatient Pediatric Experience

The pediatric resident gains a broad range of ambulatory pediatric experiences in each year of training. Outpatient experience occurs in the Tulane Clinics, the Ochsner Clinics, as well as in a number of faculty-staffed, community-based clinics. These allow residents at each level to develop and refine skills in the evaluation and management of children and adolescents with a variety of problems. Mobile Medical Unit clinics newly established after the storm offer opportunities in caring for children in devastated areas.

An essential element of pediatric training in our program is the resident’s weekly Continuity of Care Clinic. Residents have a choice of either Tulane or Ochsner hospital-based clinics, or at a youth shelter for their Continuity Clinic site. Patients are seen by appointment or walk-in. Patients are followed on an ongoing basis throughout the three years of training and many include children the resident has cared for on other rotations. Although faculty are always present and readily available, house officers maintain the role of primary physician. All support services are available for comprehensive patient care. A Community Pediatrics rotation exposes our residents to a variety of resources and agencies offering services to children, including a daycare center, lead abatement program, a Montessori School, a HIV clinic, the Mobile Medical Unit, and the Maternal and Child Health lobbyist at the State Capital in Baton Rouge.

Rotations through the Pediatric Emergency Room (PER) at Ochsner Hospital provide house officers with exposure to acute complaints ranging from uncomplicated respiratory infections to minor sprains and lacerations, to life-threatening illnesses. Pediatric faculty are present at all times when residents are rotating through the PER.

Other ambulatory rotations include a month in the Child Development Clinic at Ochsner, private practice rotations through the Ochsner system and rotations in the offices of local pediatricians on our clinical faculty. A Subspecialty Clinic month allows residents to pick and choose a month of clinics and design their own schedule.

Expertise in the care of Adolescent Health problems is obtained through rotations with faculty in a variety of school-based, community-based, and hospital-based, general and subspecialty, clinics at the Tulane Hospital for Children. An Adolescent Medicine month rotation in the second year provides comprehensive training in the health care and special needs of teenage patients, both with and without health insurance.