Educational Experience

Individualized Learning Plan (ILP)

The program shares American Academy of Pediatrics' vision that early career experiences with goal setting will set the stage for the lifelong learning expected of pediatricians. At the start of each academic year, residents complete an Individualized Learning Plan. Through this exercise, residents self-critique their strengths and weaknesses and set learning goals for the year, including at least a basic plan for how to meet them. The program director and advisers will review each ILP and give feedback to help the resident successfully meet the goals. At the end of the year, residents will re-examine their ILP and comment about progress toward their goals.

Faculty Adviser/Mentors

Each resident will be assigned a faculty adviser or mentor, usually a general pediatrician or behavioral-developmental pediatrician. Switching advisers or adding a specialty adviser is permitted with the approval of the program director. Residents are encouraged to use several faculty advisers depending on their interests and career goals.

The adviser meets with the resident at least bi-annually to review the resident's progress and evaluations. At the fall meeting, the adviser will review the resident's performance on the In-Training Exam and will help the resident develop a boards study plan. Advisers also participate in resident reviews, which they will discuss with the resident. Advisers are available to discuss any personal or professional issue.

Our academic advising program helps residents develop educational plans compatible with professional and personal goals. Academic advising should be viewed as a continuous process of self-reflection, feedback and improvement. Such advising is only the beginning of the lifelong learning and improvement process of a physician career.

Conferences

Core Curriculum

• Scheduled three days per week
• Topics are selected from the Nelson's Essentials of Pediatrics, Faculty survey, In-Training Examination results, and American Academy of Pediatrics PREP Content Specifications
• Topics are presented in a case-based format, whenever possible
• Board review questions will be incorporated as often as possible
• Residents ask questions and participate in topic discussions

Grand Attending Rounds

• Scheduled weekly
• Forum for case presentation
• A resident will often review the case, collect all pertinent data, and organize the material into a well-constructed, complete and concise oral and written case presentation
• A faculty member will then guide the discussion, flow or emphasis of the conference

Morning Teaching Conference

• Scheduled four days per week
• For inpatient residents on Floor team, PICU, NICU, and FTN and residents assigned to outpatient rotations at KU

Pediatric Grand Rounds

• Scheduled weekly
• Presentations by faculty and guest speakers on current pediatric topics of interest

Ethics Conference

• Scheduled monthly
• Exposes residents, faculty and others to ethical questions about our field

Journal Club

• Scheduled monthly
• Provides a solid exercise in scholarship and critical thinking about the current literature in clinical pediatrics
• A PL1 resident chooses a main article from a current peer-reviewed journal
• The presenting resident describes the problem, summarizes competing schools of thought and the immediately relevant background literature, summarizes the main paper, and states an opinion
• The faculty adviser and any guest experts comment
• The discussion is then opened to the floor

Morbidity And Mortality Conference

• Scheduled monthly
• Previous month's mortality statistics are presented, when available
• A PGY2 resident presents a summary of a selected case and discusses aspects of pathophysiology related to the case
• Provides quality review of pediatric cases in an educational, peer-reviewed setting to address system-based issues

Senior Residents' Conference

• Scheduled monthly
• A PGY3 resident lays out, closely examines, and evaluates the historical and current approaches to a clinical problem or interesting topic
• The presentation should resemble a Pediatric Grand Rounds