Program Leadership Message

Welcome to the pediatric residency training program at Baylor College of Medicine!

Your time in residency will be a process of self-discovery, packed with new and exciting experiences that will nourish your personal and professional growth. My vision is to cultivate a diverse and innovative program that helps trainees succeed in developing the expertise to do difficult things well in order to treat children’s biological disease, personal illness, and social sickness through a creative mindset.  Our goal is to provide you with world-class training in pediatrics and expose you to a variety of new and challenging clinical situations that will allow you to hone the skills needed for the next phase in your career.

Our house staff office and faculty educators are dedicated to helping residents become competent, compassionate, and resourceful pediatric providers, researchers, and academic leaders. With unparalleled support from our chair and a department that is dedicated to resident education, we have continued to grow, innovate, and succeed in our educational mission.

Our curriculum provides residents with a strong foundation in patient-centered care, evidence-based decision-making, quality and safety, and medical education. Whether your plans include completing a highly competitive fellowship, entering clinical practice, or caring for the sickest children in resource-limited settings around the globe, we can offer resources, mentorship, and a training environment focused on transparent inquiry and health equity to prepare you for success.  

Here are just a few highlights of our program:

Clinical exposure: Texas Children’s Hospital, located in the Texas Medical Center, is the largest pediatric hospital in the nation, and provides care in more than 40 pediatric specialties. Virtually all types of medical problems, from the common cold to rare genetic syndromes (and sometimes both!), will be encountered during your training.

Combined training programs: Residents may individualize their curriculum based on their anticipated post-residency career. Specialty tracks and combined programs include: Child-Neurology, Global Health, Genetics, Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, Medicine-Pediatrics, Pediatric-Scientist, and Primary Care LEAD. Even if you are not enrolled in these pathways, the specialized faculty and resources that support them are readily accessible to all of our trainees.  

FUN! Residency is probably the most challenging transition on the path to becoming a practicing physician. Despite being a large program, we foster personal connections and a supportive community that encourages having fun while working and learning through weekly “Aloha Friday” candy rounds, resident society functions, and annual Halloween costume contests.  

Resident education: Prioritizing the education of our residents is at the forefront of our program, and we have set aside resident educational time daily that is protected from clinical duties to ensure that residents are learning through high-quality teaching in addition to the hands-on learning that occurs on clinical services. Sessions include interactive case conferences presented by our own residents to stimulate critical thinking and approaching diagnostic dilemmas, daily board-prep style noon conferences, professional development series, and hands-on simulation skills sessions.

Residents as teachers: Residents have an essential role in supervising and teaching medical students, residents, and our interprofessional healthcare partners. The award-winning, Safety and Teaching as Resident Supervisors (STaRS) curriculum was specifically designed to prepare residents to become autonomous medical educators.

The Baylor College of Medicine Pediatrics Residency Program seeks to attract the best possible candidates from throughout the nation and world. If you are interested in training for a career in Pediatrics in one of the most rapidly-growing, diverse cities in the nation (and having fun while doing it), I encourage you to explore what our program has to offer!

Brian Rissmiller, M.D.
Program Director, Pediatric Residency
Assistant Professor, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital

Dear Future Pediatricians,

A warm welcome to the website for the Baylor College of Medicine Pediatric Residency training program. I invite you to learn about the exceptional training opportunities that we offer at Baylor and Texas Children’s Hospital as well as the vibrant and diverse community of the city of Houston. I am incredibly proud of our Department of Pediatrics Faculty, with outstanding general and sub-specialty pediatricians from around the world who are leaders in clinical care, research, education, policy and advocacy. 

Our residents are intelligent, enthusiastic, and compassionate individuals who thrive in an environment of mutual respect and inclusion for all colleagues. We aim to provide patient-centered education that supports life-long inquiry and growth by providing every trainee a robust foundation in general and subspecialty pediatrics.  Our faculty are dedicated to ensuring equity, diversity and inclusion for all, while leading our trainees to provide complete health care to infants, children and adolescents from Houston, the state of Texas and beyond. Our patients reflect the multicultural nature Houston, which is the most diverse city in the United States, and, in addition, we receive referrals from across the globe to our tertiary and quaternary care teams. All of these facets come together to provide our residents with exceptional and unparalleled training. 

Whether you are interested in general pediatrics, sub-specialty training, basic, translational or clinical research, or are as yet undecided, Baylor provides a community of pediatricians who are dedicated to teaching, mentoring and learning together. If you have never been to Houston, it is a very special city and an amazing place to live and work. On a personal level when I moved here, having lived in many places around the world, I was amazed by how much Houston has to offer in terms of the local cultural scene including arts and music, wonderful dining, sports, outdoor activities, and access to beaches, lakes and so much more. Houston is a national and international ‘hub’ which makes it very easy to travel for short breaks, and for friends and family to visit from all over the US. 

Thank you for visiting our website, and, truly, I hope that you will consider applying to our program and learning more about all that Houston, Baylor, and Texas Children’s have to offer. 

Cheers, 

Lara Shekerdemian, M.B.Ch.B, M.D., M.H.A.
Pediatrician-in-Chief,
Texas Children's Hospital 
Professor and Interim Chair of Pediatrics,
Baylor College of Medicine