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Pediatric Fellowship Overview

The Fellow will be exposed to an extremely wide variety of pediatric orthopedic trauma cases due to the diversity of injury patterns and patient population in the State of Mississippi. The Children's Hospital of Mississippi is the only pediatric/children's hospital in Mississippi, and thus all children's trauma is directed to our institution.  The Fellow will be involved in the evaluation, decision-making and follow-up of these patients, in addition to managing any complications resulting from the injury or treatment itself. Not only will the Fellow see and treat the most common pediatric orthopedic injuries, both in clinic and in the operating room, but he/she will also gain experience in the treatment of high-energy injuries and multi-trauma in a pediatric setting. At the conclusion of this Fellowship, the Fellow will be well trained and comfortable dealing with all pediatric orthopedic trauma.  

Education Outline 

Formal Sessions, Classes and Seminars  

• Grand Rounds and basic science conferences, supported by the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, held weekly – one hour (Wednesday)
• Pediatric orthopedic journal club held once per month – one hour (Friday)
• Educational sessions on a wide range of pediatric orthopedic topics held monthly – one hour (Friday)
• Pre-operative planning conference – twice per week – one hour each (Monday & Friday)
• Post-operative conference – twice per week - one hour each (Monday & Friday)
• Complex deformity cases rounds – twice per month - one hour each (Monday & Friday)
• Specialty research conferences held monthly – one hour each (Thursday)  

Daily Activities  

These may include:  

• Morning surgical floor rounds
• Surgery
• Administrative time (to work on research activities)
• Pediatric orthopedic clinics (attending staff clinics)
• Children's Hospital of Mississippi has multidisciplinary clinics, including scoliosis, hip, muscle disease, limb deformity and lengthenings, spasticity and cerebral palsy
• Fellow clinic (an opportunity to see your own patients usually in follow-up to trauma call, an independent clinic with adjacent attending staff to assist with care questions)  

Call Schedule 

The Fellow will be placed on the pediatric orthopedic call schedule. For the first month of the Fellowship the Fellow will work with a pediatric orthopedic staff surgeon. The Fellow will participate on call one day every four days.  

Following this initial month, the Fellow will participate on the call schedule with a staff available for support. This call will be done independently.  The Fellow will continue to be on call one day every four days 

Research Program 

Expectations 

Gaining skills in research methodology and critical evaluation of the medical literature is an important goal of the fellowship. Each fellow is expected to complete at least one scholarly project during the fellowship. In most cases, this is a research project of the fellow's design, conducted under the guidance of a faculty mentor which culminates in a formal presentation at the end-of year graduation, and, in most cases, submission for peer-reviewed publication. To support these aims, the Orthopaedic Surgery Department employs three full-time research coordinators to assist with study design, IRB approvals, statistical analysis, etc. 

Research Framework 

Once a month, all of the faculty, research coordinators, fellow(s), and residents working on pediatric orthopaedic research projects meet in person and via a Zoom conference to discuss everyone's projects. We have a master document with deadline dates for each project to keep everyone on task. All projects are housed a REDCap database.  

Research Timeline 

• February-March: Pediatric orthopaedic faculty will meet to identify projects of interest that would be appropriate for the incoming fellow 
• April (Match month): Once the incoming fellow has been identified, they will be contacted via email with a list of projects to see which one fits their interests  
• April-June: The research team will take the research project idea chosen by the fellow and work on the IRB application so that it will be approved by the IRB before the fellow starts. In addition the incoming fellow will complete their online CITI training required by the IRB. 
• August-Sept: Orient the new fellow to the projects and the team, begin detailed work on the research database for the project housed in REDCap.  
• October-January: Data collection, check in's at monthly research meetings to ensure no hold ups 
• February-March: Analyze data and meet to review if needed 
• April-May: Fellow is preparing presentation for visiting professor day.  Monthly research meetings are used to show attending the draft of talk ahead of VP day.  Fellow presents talk.  
• May-July: writing the paper.  Ideally the attending would read at least a first draft.  Work with JD on figures.  By the time fellow leaves, ideally have a version of the paper that is close to or already submitted