Pediatric Surgery Fellowship Program

The Division of Pediatric Surgery is very active in laparoscopic and thoracoscopic procedures, performing routine and advanced procedures including: fundoplications, pyloromyotomies, endorectal pull-throughs, inguinal hernias, minimally invasive CDH repair, pulmonary lobectomies, etc. The Pediatric Surgical Service has full responsibility in collaboration with neonatology and critical care for the care of surgical patients in the Neonatal Intensive Care and Pediatric Intensive Care Units. Arkansas Children’s Hospital is an American College of Surgeons verified Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center with more that 950 admissions per year. These cases are a mixture of blunt and penetrating trauma.  

Training Site

Arkansas Children’s Hospital is one of the largest standalone children’s hospitals in the country (336 beds) and is an American College of Surgeon verified Level 1 Children’s Surgical Center. The pediatric surgery service performs over 2,400 cases per year. Our pediatric surgery residents average between 1,000 and 1,400 operative cases during their fellowship. Our state-of-the-art Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) currently has over 90 beds, providing a good mix and volume of neonatal index cases. As one of the two hospitals in the only pediatric medical system in our state (population 2.7 million), Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) serves as “the” tertiary pediatric facility in Arkansas with two full-time helicopters, a fixed-wing aircraft, and several ground transport units.  

Teaching

One of our major strengths is teaching. Our entire faculty brings a commitment to working closely with pediatric surgery residents. Each of the attendings take call within a Surgeon-of-the-Week model. This allows for better continuity for patient cases, and rounds, and a clear sense of who gets consults and priority in the OR. We have multiple specialty nurses and advanced practice nurses functioning both inpatient and outpatient. At any given time, we have from two to four Junior medical students, three surgical interns and a fourth-year surgery resident rotating on our service. This allows an excellent opportunity for the pediatric surgery residents to be actively involved in teaching.  

Management of Surgical Patients

Pediatric surgery residents are involved in the preoperative and postoperative management of all surgical patients since we have no other off-site practices. In the current managed care environment, we feel that this is important advantage of our program over many of the others. We have three all-day clinics per week that are staffed by the residents and attending staff. This allows involvement in both long and short-term follow-ups as well as the initial evaluation of new patient conditions ranging from inguinal hernias to choledochal cysts.  

More Information

Additional information about our Pediatric Surgery Fellowship program can be obtained from our GME Program Coordinator, Jill Hare, by phone at 501-364-3962 or email at JMHare@uams.edu.

Current Pediatric Surgery Fellows