Critical care fellowship graduates in the Pediatric Critical Care Nephrology Program can expect to experience two months of supervised clinical coverage of the Texas Children's Hospital Renal Dialysis Unit during which time the fellow will receive formal, didactic instruction in the principles of hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.
Supervised Clinical Coverage
This instruction and clinical responsibility is the same course provided to all first-year pediatric nephrology fellows. The fellow will have nine months of supervised clinical coverage of the inpatient Special Care Units Service of the Texas Children's Renal Service, which is comprised of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, the Neonatal Intensive Care Units, the Special Care nurseries and the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit.
On-call responsibilities are comprised of every third night and every third weekend call and are held in strict compliance with the ACGME guidelines for post-graduate medical training. Night call is taken from home in the same manner as provided by Pediatric Nephrology fellows.
Mentored Research
Graduates of pediatric nephrology sub-specialty programs will continue their education specific to Pediatric Critical Care Nephrology and Dialysis by completing nine months of mentored research in a clinical and/or translational project in the area of Critical Care Nephrology. These fellows will also be assigned to two months of supervised clinical service in the inpatient Special Care Units Service of the Texas Children's Renal Service and will follow the same on-call responsibilities as outlined above.
Expectations
All fellows will be expected to attend all the educational conferences offered by the Renal Service at Texas Children's, which include:
- Weekly fellows conferences covering nephrology topics that satisfy the core knowledge components for the American Board of Pediatrics Sub-Board of Pediatric Nephrology
- Monthly basic science Journal Club that focuses upon a basic science or translational research paper pertinent to pediatric nephrology
- Bi-monthly clinical research conferences that review the state of current research projects in the Texas Children's Nephrology Section
- Present once at the weekly fellows conference and the basic science Journal Club during the year
- Present the current status of his/her research at each of the bi-monthly clinical research conferences
Fellows are provided the opportunity to attend the International Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy Conference held each spring in Coronado, California.
