Ambulatory Pediatrics

Diverse Community Experience
Columbus is a diverse community, and so are our patients. Hispanics, Asians and Africans have immigrated to the city, which already is highly diverse both racially and culturally. This provides our residents with the valuable experience of treating people from culturally rich backgrounds.

Resident Clinic
Each resident is assigned a half-day continuity clinic each week at Children's Old Village Close To HomeSM Physician Care Center. Resident Clinic hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Each resident also will spend a one-month rotation, each academic year, as a clinic resident. During that block rotation, the clinic resident also is responsible for seeing babies in the nursery every morning at Doctors Hospital. The resident reviews the chart, maternal history, birth history, etc. and completes a newborn exam prior to the attending arriving and fills out all of the necessary paperwork. The resident speaks to the parents regarding consent for a circumcision, if indicated. The attending physician is present for all procedures.

Most children seen at the clinic are from underserved populations, and many have complex medical needs. The clinic resident will see sick visits, continuity patients and newborn follow-ups. Clinic residents are responsible for all the paperwork in the office, including mommy calls, labs, billing sheets and various patient forms. All paperwork needs to be signed, dated and placed in the patient's chart. Clinic residents also are responsible for teaching any medical students that are rotating in the clinic. After hours, the clinic resident takes home call from a nurse triage line, in addition to calls from the Doctors Hospital Emergency Room regarding adolescent admissions and calls from Doctors Hospital's Newborn Nursery.

Osteopathic Pediatric Education in Community Sites (OPECS)
To provide one the nation's most distinctive experiences in community practice, residents will be assigned a rotation in a community pediatrician's office. Second- and third-year residents rotate in the community offices of osteopathic pediatricians for one half-day a week. This experience allows residents to work with several physicians in various practices around Columbus. It allows the resident to appreciate the many varieties of practices and practice styles, and also the opportunity to see patients of different backgrounds.

This vital, one-of-a-kind training experience:

  • Reinforces the basics of primary care pediatrics,
  • Ensures a rich diversity of experience with different patient populations and a variety of private practices,
  • Teaches the business aspects of pediatric practice, and
  • Provides the experience of working side-by-side with a "real-life" private pediatrician.

Athens, Ohio
A one month rural rotation in Athens, Ohio includes the newborn nursery at O'Bleness Hospital. Residents meet the attending each morning in the nursery to round. Residents also will round on the children that are admitted to the hospital's general medical floor. The Clinic is in Parks Hall on the campus of Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Residents see patients first and present them to the attending. Residents are required to attend all emergency c-sections and high-risk vaginal deliveries during the day and during the nights that they are on call. Night call consists of answering mommy calls, admitting patients to the hospital (the resident is required to go in for all admissions) and attending deliveries. The attending physician is required to attend all c-sections and high-risk deliveries with the resident. Weekend call starts on Friday at 5 p.m. and lasts until Monday morning at 7 a.m. The responsibilities are the same as night call, with the exception that the resident is required to do rounds with the attending on call on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Residents in Schools Initiative
Our Residents in Schools Initiative is truly unique among traditional residency training programs. In this initiative residents teach second-, third- and fourth-grade students about health care challenges of the future – the "new morbidities" such as obesity, smoking and sedentary lifestyle. These health issues are behaviorally based and can be influenced in schools by education and prevention efforts. Residents will:

  • Provide students and their families with information to improve health and foster healthy choices,
  • See first-hand children's needs and the community resources that are available to address them,
  • Work with teachers to evaluate and manage learning and behavioral problems, and
  • Promote access to primary care and health services.

Emergency Department
Pediatric residents spend one to two months each year in the Emergency Department (ED). Children's newly expanded ED has 24-hour pediatric emergency medicine attending coverage and is the region's only pediatric Level 1 Trauma Center. With more than 130,000 emergency facility visits per year, Children's is one of the busiest pediatric emergency departments in the country.