The Pediatric Clerkship at Goryeb Children’s Hospital – Atlantic Health System exposes students to general pediatrics and pediatric subspecialties in the in- and out-patient settings. In addition to improving clinical skills, students learn from an exemplary medical staff and superb house staff, who serve as mentors in learning the art, as well as the science, of medicine. AHS offers a variety of pediatric experiences, including inpatient Pediatric Sub-Internships: Inpatient, Pediatric Clinical Care, and Neonatal Intensive Care, as well as electives in pediatric specialties such as Developmental Pediatrics; Endocrinology & Diabetes; Gastroenterology & Nutrition; Genetics; Hematology & Oncology; and Pulmonology.
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Pediatric Critical Care Sub-Internship
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Director(s)
Location
Duration
4 weeks
Offered
- August–February
- 1 student per rotation; rotation starts on the first Monday of the month
Prerequisites
Successful completion of all 3rd year clerkships
Description
The pediatric critical care sub-internship studies the pathophysiology and treatment of organ system failure and provides a better understanding of the complex interaction between the patient, the patient’s family, the disease process, and the pediatric critical care team.
Learning Experience
Students will:
- Follow individual patients, under the supervision of house staff and pediatric intensivists, in a 15-bed pediatric intensive care unit
- Round with the multidisciplinary pediatric critical care team and attend daily pediatric intake rounds
- Take an active role in the discussion of pathophysiology and management
- Prepare 2-3 brief presentations on patient-related topics
- Read material distributed to supplement discussions on sepsis, systemic inflammatory response syndrome, cerebral resuscitation, circulatory support, trauma, ventilator management, and other critical care topics
Goals & Objectives
- To be exposed to critically ill pediatric patients
- To learn pathophysiology of disease process
- To understand clinical management of disease process
Feedback & Evaluation
The attending preceptor will provide feedback throughout the rotation. A final, written evaluation will be completed at the end of the rotation.
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Developmental Pediatrics
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Director(s)
Location
Duration
4 weeks
Offered
- Throughout the academic year
- 1 student per rotation; rotation starts on the first Monday of the month
Prerequisites
Successful completion of all 3rd year clerkships
Description
The developmental pediatrics rotation exposes 4th year medical students to a broad variety of pediatric developmental disorders. The importance of coordinated interdisciplinary care of these complex patients is emphasized.
Learning Experience
Students will:
- Work in the Child Development Center, providing evaluation and treatment services to infants, children, and adolescents with developmental concerns or disabilities
- Areas of emphasis include:
- follow-up of high-risk infants from the neonatal intensive care unit;
- the evaluation of autism,
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,
- other behavioral, developmental, and learning disorders;
- the evaluation of infants adopted internationally, and
- a psychotropic medication follow-up program.
- Work with a team consisting of neurodevelopmental pediatricians, nurse practitioners, social workers, speech, physical, and occupational therapists, psychologists, and special education consultants
- Learn the elements of the neurodevelopmental evaluation of children with a variety of developmental disorders and treatment options for them
Goals & Objectives
- To recognize typical vs. atypical developmental milestones
- To learn diagnosis and treatment options for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- To understand appropriate referral services based on laws protecting persons with disabilities
Feedback & Evaluation
The attending preceptor will provide feedback throughout the rotation. A final, written evaluation will be completed at the end of the rotation.
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Genetics
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Director(s)
Location
Duration
4 or 8 weeks
Offered
- All year
- 1 student per rotation; rotation starts on the first Monday of the month
Prerequisites
Successful completion of all 3rd year clerkships, specifically medicine and pediatrics
Description
The genetics rotation familiarizes 4th year medical students with the field of medical genetics and its role in the diagnosis, management, and education of patients and their families regarding genetic conditions. Medical genetics encompasses a wide range of disorders, including congenital anomalies, familial diseases, and inborn errors of metabolism. Students will have the opportunity to experience the full spectrum in both the inpatient and outpatient settings and to attend other clinics, including the craniofacial clinic. Other outpatient clinical experiences in prenatal genetic counseling and cancer genetics can also be arranged, if desired. Inpatient consultations will be addressed as they arise. Emphasis is placed on a rational and sophisticated approach to the use of common antimicrobial agents.
Learning Experience
Students will:
- Perform and document age and developmentally appropriate dysmorphic examination
- Gain an appreciation for the wide-range of typical/normal features as well as specific physical examination features important in syndrome/disorder recognition
- Be able to take a clear, complete, and appropriate genetic family history and be able to draw pedigrees
- Recognize and explain the common modes of inheritance: AR, AD, XL, mitochondrial, and multifactorial
- Be familiar with other important genetic phenomenon, including imprinting, uniparental disomy, and chromosome translocations and with the wide variety of genetic resources available for physicians and families (support groups, databases, and internet sites)
- Have an appreciation for the complexity of genetic testing, including the ethics of testing in various situations
- Become familiar with the primary areas of testing as well as their advantages and limitations: cytogenetics, including chromosome analysis and FISH; molecular testing, including comparative genomic hybridization, SNP Microarray analysis, next generation genomic sequencing, and mutation analysis; population based and directed (ethnic) screening; and biochemical testing, including screening, analytes and enzymes
Goals & Objectives
- To enrich knowledge of normal and atypical physical examination features (dysmorphic examination)
- To realize the importance of a genetic family history and the importance of genetic counseling
- To know genetic testing methodologies and ethical, legal, and social issues regarding genetic testing
- To understand the range of medical genetics
Feedback & Evaluation
The residents, attending physicians, and course directors will evaluate students and provide feedback throughout the rotation. A final, written evaluation will be completed at the end of the rotation.
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Pediatric Hematology and Oncology
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Director(s)
Location
Duration
4 weeks
Offered
- August–February
- 1 student per rotation; rotation starts on the first Monday of the month
Prerequisites
Successful completion of all 3rd year clerkships
Description
The pediatric inpatient sub-internship gives students advanced training in general pediatrics, while functioning as an intern on a 34-bed general pediatric floor. A high faculty/student ratio facilitates individual attention and teaching.
Learning Experience
Students will:
- Care for patients under the supervision of senior house officers and full-time teaching attending physicians
- Be expected to assume major responsibility for the evaluation and management of patients
- Attend daily rounds and teaching conferences along with pediatric house officers
- Participate in the preparation of cases for formal presentation
Goals & Objectives
- To function as an intern on a general pediatrics floor
- To evaluate and manage pediatric patients
- To assist in preparation of patient presentations
Feedback & Evaluation
The attending preceptor will provide feedback throughout the rotation. A final, written evaluation will be completed at the end of the rotation.
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Neonatal Intensive Care Sub-Internship
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Director(s)
Location
Duration
4 weeks
Offered
- August–February
- 1 student per rotation; rotation starts on the first Monday of the month
Prerequisites
Successful completion of all 3rd year clerkships
Description
The neonatal intensive care sub-internship allows 4th year medical students to participate in the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of high-risk infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The NICU is a 34-bed unit under the direction of full-time, hospital-based neonatologists.
Learning Experience
Students will:
- Function as interns in the newborn ICU, which serves 4,000 infants born annually at Morristown Medical Center, as well as mothers and infants transferred from all areas of Northern New Jersey
- Be encouraged to evaluate infants in the regular newborn nursery with problems of lesser acuity, not requiring admission to the neonatal intensive care unit
Goals & Objectives
- To acquire knowledge of fetal growth and development
- To develop an understanding of the normal process of labor and delivery and the effects of pathologic events on the fetus and the newborn during labor
- To obtain necessary skills for delivery room management of depressed newborns
- To learn the common aberrations, course, and management of the high-risk infant
- To become familiar with normal variability in structure and development of the full-term and large pre-term neonate
- To ascertain the variations in the clinical course of the growing, low birth weight infant (pre-term or SGA), the factors influencing it, the common aberrations, and their management
- To recognize, diagnose, evaluate, and manage the commonly occurring disorders of the neonate:
- jaundice
- respiratory distress
- infection
- metabolic disturbances–hypoglycemia and hypocalcemia
- infant of the diabetic mother
- SGA infant
- To cultivate skills for basic supportive care of the sick neonate
- Umbilical artery catheterization
- Peripheral artery catheterization
- Lumbar puncture
- Percutaneous puncture of arteries and veins
- To attain familiarity with the management of the infant requiring mechanical ventilation
- To evaluate early infant-mother relationships and to counsel parents in infant care
Feedback & Evaluation
The attending preceptor will provide feedback throughout the rotation. A final, written evaluation will be completed at the end of the rotation.
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Pediatric Pulmonology
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Director(s)
Location
Duration
4 weeks
Offered
- Throughout the academic year
- 1 student per rotation; rotation starts on the first Monday of the month
Prerequisites
Successful completion of all 3rd year clerkships
Description
The pediatric pulmonology rotation provides 4th year medical students an overview of pediatric pulmonology, including asthma, cystic fibrosis, and bronchopulmonary dysplasia, as well as inpatient and outpatient consultations and pulmonary function testing.
Learning Experience
Students will:
- Be given direct patient-related responsibilities for evaluation of pulmonary symptoms
Goals & Objectives
- To observe and understand pulmonary function testing
- To gain insight into the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric pulmonary diseases
Feedback & Evaluation
The attending preceptor will provide. Evaluations will be based on overall improvement in the knowledge of pediatric pulmonary medicine as well as attitude and desire to learn. A final, written evaluation will be completed at the end of the rotation.
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Pediatric Inpatient Sub-Internship
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Director(s)
Niva Shah, DO
Location
Duration
4 weeks
Offered
- August–February
- 1 student per rotation; rotation starts on the first Monday of the month
Prerequisites
Successful completion of all 3rd year clerkships
Description
The Pediatric Inpatient Sub-Internship gives students advanced training in general pediatrics, while functioning as an intern on a 34-bed general pediatric floor. A high faculty/student ratio facilitates individual attention and teaching.
Learning Experience
Students will: - Care for patients under the supervision of senior house officers and full-time teaching attending physicians
- Be expected to assume major responsibility for the evaluation and management of patients
- Attend daily rounds and teaching conferences along with pediatric house officers
- Participate in the preparation of cases for formal presentation
Goals & Objectives
- To function as an intern on a general pediatrics floor
- To evaluate and manage pediatric patients
- To assist in preparation of patient presentations
Feedback & Evaluation
The attending preceptor will provide feedback throughout the rotation. A final, written evaluation will be completed at the end of the rotation.
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Minority Visiting Clerkship Program
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Director(s)
Tyree Winters, DO
Location
Duration
4 weeks
Offered
- August–February
- 1 student per rotation; rotation starts on the first Monday of the month
Prerequisites
Successful completion of all 3rd year clerkships
Description
The AHS Minority Visiting Clerkship Program (MVCP) provides support for fourth-year medical students from underrepresented in medicine (URIM) groups as defined by the AAMC, including, but not limited to African American, Hispanic/Latino and American Indian/Alaska Native, to complete audition rotations for AHS residency programs*. MVCP participants are assigned a faculty advisor and offered opportunities to network with AHS faculty, house staff and students. Accepted students will also be guaranteed an interview to the rotating program.
Full-time, fourth year URIM students in good standing at accredited US, Canadian and ECFMG medical schools are eligible to apply. The MVCP welcomes URIM students regardless of citizenship, so long as the student is in good standing with their school and/or ECFMG. Third year URIM students who have completed their last quarter core clerkships in medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics are also eligible. In addition to completion of core requirements, all students applying to the MVCP must have completed USMLE Step 1 or COMLEX Level 1 prior to the start of their rotation.
*The MVCP is currently available for applicants of pediatric sub-intern rotations at Goryeb Children’s Hospital and will be expanded to more specialties soon.
How to apply
Learners may apply through our online system linked below, following these instructions:
- For the ‘I am applying for a rotation at’ field, select ‘Morristown Medical Center’ from the drop-down menu
- For the ‘I am applying for (specialty/subspecialty’ field, select one of the following
- PEDIATRICS Inpatient Sub Internship
- PEDS – Neonatal ICU Sub Internship
- PEDS – Pediatric ICU Sub Internship
- Applicants are welcome to apply for all three experiences-please note that each requires submission of a separate application
- Check off ‘I want to apply for the AHS Minority Clerkship program’
- Complete the remaining information and upload the requested documents
Additional Information
Do I need to prepare specific materials to apply?
Applicants for the MVCP need to complete the online application and submit the requested materials for the rotation-no additional documents or materials are needed for the MVCP:
• CV
• Medical school transcript (unofficial transcripts are permitted but please include both basic science and core clerkship grades)
• USMLE or COMLEX transcript
• Photo
Is housing available for students accepted to the MVCP?
Though we currently do not offer student housing (rotators typically need to set up their own accommodations for the duration of the rotation) we will work with accepted students to address any barriers to the experience.