Pediatric Course Goals, Objectives, and Strategies

While we have unique objectives for all of our various department courses, all of them share four student goals:

Maintain a sense of personal wellness and joy in medicine

“The secret of the care of the patient is caring for oneself while caring for the patient” (Cadib L, 1995) Being a physician can be both incredibly rewarding and incredibly stressful. Developing and maintaining strategies to promote resilience, mental wellbeing, and a healthy work-life integration will benefit students both now and in the future. We encourage students to set aside time to focus on personal wellness and joy during their time on Pediatrics and to ask themselves some important questions: What led you to medicine in the first place? What makes you happy? What would you like your work and life to look like 5-10 years from now? Could you take some steps now?

Grow as a physician in training including career exploration and fulfillment of personal goals and objectives

This is an exciting time in students’ lives and careers! In addition to considering whether they see themselves as a future pediatrician, pediatric courses give students an opportunity to explore additional career questions. Do they like taking care of children or do they want all your patients fully grown? Many specialties other than Pediatrics include the care of children. Do they see yourself being solely hospital based, solely clinic based, or doing a combination of the two? Do they want to be a generalist or a subspecialist? Do they like procedures? Would they enjoy practicing in a teaching environment? We encourage students to take time to consider these questions and talk to physicians who have made different career decisions as they rotate through various areas of pediatrics We hope each pediatric course will take students further along this important and exciting journey. This also includes being a role model and mentor to colleagues and junior students. At times fourth year students might share patients with a third year student and assume primary supervising physician responsibility.

Build pediatric knowledge

We would like students to become familiar with normal growth and development as well as common and/or important pediatric disease processes and syndromes and their epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, evaluation, diagnosis, prognosis, management, and prevention. This core physician knowledge is applicable to many fields outside of Pediatrics.

Refine core clinical skills

We challenge all students to assume primary physician responsibilities (with appropriate supervision) for pediatric patients and families they care for by providing family-centered pediatric care that is developmentally and age appropriate, compassionate, and effective for treatment of health problems and promotion of wellness. These skills include history taking, physical exam, clinical reasoning and decision making, development and implementation of evaluation and management plans, patient/family communication, medical documentation, patient advocacy, and multidisciplinary collaboration. These skills will help you students as a physician no matter what specialty they ultimately choose. During the fourth year acting internships and electives, students are challenged to assume patient care responsibilities equivalent to those of a pediatric intern.

Shared Pediatric Course Objectives

Throughout the pediatric courses, students will:

Discuss the epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, evaluation, diagnosis, prognosis, management, and prevention of common and/or important pediatric disease processes and syndromes
Gather an age appropriate, accurate, comprehensive or problem focused medical history from a pediatric patient, family, and/or ancillary sources
Perform an age appropriate, accurate, comprehensive or problem focused pediatric physical examination while taking into account patient’s developmental level, physical, and emotional comfort
Commit to and support a working diagnosis while generating a prioritized differential
Develop and implement a patient care plan which might include further assessment, screening or diagnostic studies, specialty consultation, treatment, symptom management, patient and family education, while taking into account urgency, patient and family preference, cost effectiveness, and evidence from scientific studies
Present an accurate, comprehensive, and concise verbal summary of a clinical encounter
Create accurate, comprehensive, concise, and timely medical documentation (admission, progress, discharge, outpatient visit, consultation)
Communicate effectively, respectfully, and compassionately with pediatric patients and families including obtaining informed consent for pediatric tests and/or procedures (vaccine administration, intravenous catheter placement, lumbar puncture, incision and drainage, etc.)
Perform pediatric tests and/or procedures (vaccine administration, intravenous catheter placement, lumbar puncture, foley catheter placement, incision and drainage, etc.).
Give and receive patient handovers to transition care responsibility
Identify systems failures and contribute to a culture of safety and improvement
Collaborate as a member of an interprofessional team including giving and receiving patient handovers
Formulate personal goals based on self-identified knowledge, skill, or attitude gaps and proactively seek, examine, and apply feedback as part of continued professional growth (applicable to both clinical and non-clinical courses)

Strategies for Achieving Our Objectives

Strategies for achieving wellness objectives

Safe and welcoming learning environment
Ability to personalize each rotation
Time off and designated time for educational activities
Working with pediatric patients and pediatricians!

Strategies for achieving personal and professional growth objectives

Multiple courses
Opportunities to personalize the experience within each course
Career planning resources including faculty, fellows, residents, and senior students

Strategies for achieving knowledge and skills objectives

Supervised clinical practice, active observation, coaching
Individual study
Group educational activities

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