Education and Training

Opportunities for excellent clinical training and enhancing critical thinking skills abound including required rotations in the general inpatient pulmonary service, chronic ventilator inpatient service, pulmonary consultation services, including procedures. Fellows participate in a very active Pulmonary/NICU collaborative, including a weekly multidisciplinary care conference with NICU, Pulmonology, Cardiology, PICU and other services participating.

Pulmonary fellows participate in year-round rotations to gain experience in bronchoscopy and associated procedures, interpretation of pulmonary function tests and nocturnal polysomnography, as well as monthly cystic fibrosis, radiology and long-term ventilation conferences, and two to three times monthly fellow-led pulmonology section journal clubs, topic reviews and/or patient case conferences.

Fellows participate in a three-year rolling educational curriculum with faculty guidance to also enhance their clinical and critical thinking skills.  To cement clinical and critical thinking skills, fellows also participate in junior medical student and resident education on rounds, giving lectures and participating in section curricular development.

Each fellow attends a half-day clinic per week, when they are not on service, to care for their own panel of pulmonary patients under the supervision of the faculty.  This allows continuity for fellows to care for outpatients over a three-year period.  Additionally, fellows can participate in multidisciplinary clinics including Severe Asthma Clinic, SMA Clinic, Fontan Clinic, Muscular Dystrophy Clinic, Pulmonary hypertension clinic and others.

Pediatric Sleep Medicine is an important component of pediatric pulmonology.   Fellows participate in required rotations in the Sleep Disorders Clinic and Pediatric Sleep Laboratory to learn about sleep-disordered breathing and other sleep-related breathing problems, polysomnography, CPAP and bi-level positive pressure titrations and related topics.

Fellows spend two months on rotations with Allergy/Immunology, once in the first year and again in the 2nd year.   These rotations focus on asthma, severe asthma, immunodeficiencies, allergies and other areas that overlap with pediatric pulmonology.

Electives

Additional electives are offered in PICU, Otolaryngology, NICU, Cardiology and other areas, depending on the fellow’s interests.  Fellows have the opportunity to develop their own electives to match their individual career goals.*   An external (off-site) elective in pediatric lung transplant is possible (optional).

Bronchoscopy

Fellows are provided an exemplary bronchoscopy experience, including experience with bronchial alveolar lavage (BAL) and ciliary biopsy. Under supervision, fellows perform inpatient and outpatient bronchoscopies and participate in combined endoscopic procedures with ENT when indicated. Funds are available to send fellows to an annual Bronchoscopy Training Course.

Research and Scholarly Activity

Gaining expertise in pediatric pulmonology research is an essential component of the fellowship program. During the first six months of the fellowship, fellows have time allocated to exploring research opportunities, meeting with potential research mentors and choosing an initial research project. The fellow is expected to have an initial project within the first six months to allow time for project completion and submission of abstracts and at least one manuscript published in a peer-reviewed pulmonary journal. Fellows are encouraged to complete more than one scholarly project during their fellowship when possible.  Additional information is provided on this page.

The division’s educational conference provides a forum for state-of-the-art clinical discussions with faculty and fellows. The format includes formal presentations, journal clubs, pathology, and M&M.

• Chest Imaging Conference
  • The monthly Chest Imaging Conference facilitates discussion of radiographic studies with a division faculty member, fellows, and a member of the Pediatric Radiology faculty.
• Fellows Didactic Lecture Series
  • The Fellows Didactic lecture series is a weekly conference designed around knowledge acquisition and teaching geared towards core topics to pediatric pulmonary practice and serves as a basis for board preparation

The organization as a whole also provides educational opportunities such as:

• Peds PLACE (Pediatric Physician Learning and Collaborative Education)
  • Sponsored by UAMS and ACH every Thursday at noon, this is an interactive telemedicine continuing education program
• Fellows Conference
  • A hospital-wide monthly program highlighting fellows’ research and education curriculum
• Pediatrics Grand Rounds
  • An educational series with guest speakers held weekly

We’d love to hear from you and how we can develop a fellowship you can call your own.

Lauren Rogers

GME Fellowship Program Coordinator

Email: lrogers3@uams.edu