Residency Program-Patients, Site, Practice

Diversity is our greatest strength. By whatever standard you define diversity -- cultural, socioeconomic, or diagnostic -- our program is simply unmatched. This diversity will have a profound impact on how you care for children and their families.

The Department of Pediatrics has a long-standing and unwavering commitment to the underserved. Most of your time will be spent at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and Los Angeles County-Olive View Medical Center serving an ethnically and culturally diverse mix of publicly, privately, and un-insured children from Los Angeles’s most vulnerable populations. At all three campuses, you will see everything from “bread and butter” pediatric illnesses (e.g., gastroenteritis, asthma, and pneumonia) to tertiary/quaternary problems (e.g., complex congenital heart disease, serious genetic disorders, and end-stage liver failure). Many of these children have never received the care that they need – you will be their first, last, and best option.

In addition, you will care for a number of children covered by private managed care and fee-for-service insurance. This will teach you to navigate the country’s principal health insurance mechanisms experience the resource management issues unique to each system.

Your outpatient experiences will offer a diverse array of clinics dedicated to providing health care to vulnerable children and teenagers. Continuity Clinic options include the UCLA Pediatric Primary Care Clinic, the Simms-Mann Health and Wellness Center (part of the Venice Family Clinic, one of the premier free clinics in the country), and the Mid-Valley Health Center (a major LA County clinic in the San Fernando Valley).

Our adolescent medicine rotation exemplifies the broad range of patients and practice sites we offer our residents. You will care for adolescents in the ambulatory clinics at UCLA, school-based clinics at two local high schools, the Covenant House (a shelter for runaway and abused teens), and the Venice Family Clinic.

The wide spectrum of ethnic, socioeconomic, and practice-system settings to which you will be exposed will familiarize you with all aspects of pediatric practice. The range of clinical conditions, from life-threatening emergencies to chronic behavioral problems, from bone marrow transplants to upper respiratory infections, will allow you to define your ultimate career goals with confidence. You will leave residency fully able to enter practice as a superb general pediatrician or to pursue further education in the most competitive fellowship programs in the country.