Pediatrics Clerkship Component

The Women’s and Children's Health (WCH) Clerkship is a 12-week integrated clerkship block that is comprised of Pediatrics with Obstetrics & Gynecology (OB/GYN). The combination of these two disciplines allows students to experience and appreciate the continuum in health between women and children. Students experience this interconnectedness through their clinical encounters, integrated didactics, and a combined postcede at the end of the integrated clerkship block.

The Pediatric Clerkship component is a 6-week immersive clinical rotation structured to give clerkship students a breadth of experience in caring for children in partnership with their caregivers. During this 6-week clerkship component, the students are assigned to an inpatient team, a specialty service, a pediatric ICU, an emergency department, and the newborn nursery. From these varied care settings and patient populations, students develop the knowledge, skills, and an understanding of the approach of pediatricians to the health care of children and adolescents across the spectrum of age and disease to effectively diagnose and care for common and complex pediatric illnesses. In addition, students understand the influence of family, community, and society on the child in health and disease.

During their clinical rotations, students work as fully integrated members of multidisciplinary care teams. Preceptors include interns, senior residents, and attendings. Students are expected to take on a level of responsibility for patient care commensurate with their training and ability. In addition to the team-based learning, clerkship student-specific didactics include interactive core lectures, SIM sessions, ICU physiology rounds, and self-directed online learning modules, all of which promote deeper learning and understanding through literature review, advocacy opportunities and the consideration of relevant health disparities impacting their patients.

Assessment structures ensure direct observation and real time feedback to help students improve over the course of the rotation. The clerkship component utilizes entrustable professional activity (EPA) based assessments of physical exam, documenting a clinical encounter in the patient record, and providing an oral presentation of a clinical encounter for each student. These EPA assessments allow students to gauge their preparedness for autonomous practice. Processes are in place for students to receive and document mid-rotation feedback. At the conclusion of the Pediatrics clerkship component, students take a medical knowledge exam as an open-book, team-based learning experience. All assessments are formative and used to equip the students with information about areas of relative strengths and weakness and not to determine final grade.

• Acquisition of basic knowledge of growth and development (physical, physiologic and psychosocial) and of its clinical application from birth through adolescence.
• Acquisition of the knowledge necessary for the diagnosis and initial management of common pediatric acute and chronic illnesses.
• An understanding of the approach of pediatricians to the health care of children and adolescents.
• An understanding of the influence of family, community and society on the child in health and disease.
• Development of communication skills that will facilitate the clinical interaction with children, adolescents and their families and thus ensure that complete, accurate data are obtained.
• Development of competency in the physical examination of newborns, infants, children and adolescents.
• Development of clinical problem-solving skills.
• Development of the attitudes and professional behaviors appropriate for clinical practice.

*PIR = Peds In Review article