Pulmonary

The Pediatric Pulmonary fellowship at Babies and Children's Hospital of New York of the New York Presbyterian Hospital and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons is approved by the Pediatric Residency Review Committee. This three year fellowship is available to candidates who have completed a pediatric residency in an accredited program. In general, fourteen months are spent acquiring clinical skills with the remaining 22 months spent in research, with weekly outpatient clinics. The bulk of the clinical rotations occur during the first year. This allows the fellow a large block of time during the second and third years to develop the skills and acumen needed to develop meaningful research. In the middle of the third year the fellow returns to the clinical arena. The research should lead to writing a grant proposal during the beginning of the third year.

The first year of the fellowship focuses on both clinical and research aspects of pediatric pulmonology. Time is spent on a variety of rotations, each of which offers a unique dimension and further enhances the fellows knowledge and experience. Eight months are spent on the clinical rotations. This entails supervising the care of patients admitted to the hospital on the pulmonary service and providing pulmonary consultations for the inpatient service at BCH. The fellow performs bronchoscopies under the direct supervision of the faculty. Other available rotations include critical care, radiology, nuclear medicine, adult pulmonary medicine and anesthesiology.

During the first year, the fellow spends time in the pulmonary function laboratories becoming familiar with pulmonary function testing (PFT's) and their interpretation. We also have an infant PFT laboratory as well as a pediatric exercise physiology laboratory.

A weekly conference is attended by all members of the interdisciplinary CF team. There is a weekly clinical/basic science seminar and a bimonthly radiology conference. Columbia University has a core curriculum in cell and molecular biology and molecular biophysics. This inter-departmental curriculum is taught by members of the basic science departments and is designed for graduate students in the basic sciences. Courses are available in research design and statistics.

In addition to the laboratories in the Division, fellows make use of laboratories investigating ion channel function, protein trafficking, Pseudomonas adherence and cellular cytokine responses to inflammation.

The major focus of the training program is to provide the fellows with an in-depth experience in research, beginning with planning and designing an experiment, moving the performance of the studies, presenting the work at a scientific meeting and culminating in the writing of a manuscript describing the work for submission to a peer review journal.