Residency

Ranked best in the region by U.S. News & World Report, the residency program at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) and NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital has 26 trainees per residency class and is the largest program in the New York metropolitan region. We are not only the major provider of primary care for the largely Latinx community of Washington Heights but also the major referral hospital for the greater New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut region.

Our residency program provides trainees with a broad foundation in pediatrics consisting of:

• Inpatient and critical care
• Exposure to one of the highest case mix indices in the country
• Depth and breadth of pediatric medicine and surgical specialty services
• Community-based continuity outpatient care
• Resident wellness

Our residency program directors outline the underlying values of our program in this excerpt from a letter to potential applicants:

Fundamentally, we are a community and we are a family, and we learn from each other and teach each other. We respect and advocate for each other, and for our patients and community at large. We take care of each other in times of need as much as we take care of our patients. We welcome you to join our family and community, as we grow and learn together. 

Sumeet Banker, MD, MPH
Interim Co-Director, Pediatric Residency Program

Candace Johnson, MD
Interim Co-Director, Pediatric Residency Program

Mariellen Lane, MD
Associate Program Director

Achieving Health Equity

Our residency curriculum is focused throughout on the goal of achieving health equity. We work toward this goal by seeking to identify and address child health inequities within our medical system, community, and society, and to solidify equity as a pillar of care within pediatrics. This lens has been embedded into chief resident and resident-led teaching conferences as well as biweekly case-based health equity rounds on the inpatient Pediatrics service.

Ambulatory Care and Community Pediatrics

Our outstanding Community Pediatrics Program is a model of joint academic-community partnerships and serves children in the Washington Heights–Inwood community. The three-year service-learning experiential curriculum is based in the community and anchored around the connections between social determinants of health, race, socioeconomic status, and disparities.

Residents are assigned to one of four hospital-affiliated or neighborhood-based combined faculty and resident group practices, where they:

• Serve as the primary care provider for a panel of patients at a weekly continuity clinic
• Provide care for well children and children with special health care needs
• Work with a variety of community agencies
• Rotate through the adolescent ambulatory clinic, affiliated school-based clinics, and our Young Men’s Clinic for adolescent and young adult men
• Attend conference series, with topics including:
  • Population health
  • Social determinants of health 
  • Health disparities
  • Legislative advocacy coordinates with the resident-driven Columbia Pediatric Advocacy Program (CPAP) 

Residents joined the hospital and departmental efforts to successfully roll out COVID vaccines at the mass vaccination site in the Armory and at the Harlem Children’s Zone.

Research

Our learners have opportunities to pursue diverse and enriching experiences in research, advocacy, quality improvement, medical education, community pediatrics, and global health. All residents are required to participate in clinic site-specific quality improvement projects as well as a faculty-mentored scholarly project and to present their research at the annual resident scholarly project forum. Second- and third-year residents have the option of designated research time one morning per week or completing a research elective rotation. Many residents publish their work in peer-reviewed publications and present at national and international meetings.

Pediatrician-Scientist Training and Development Program (PSTDP)

Launched in 2019, the Pediatrician-Scientist Training and Development Program (PSTDP), led by Jordan Orange, MD, PhD, provides talented MDs or MD/PhDs committed to both research and pediatrics with comprehensive, personalized training. The program accepts one resident each year and provides more than 11 months of completely protected research time. Participants are able to work in any lab at CUIMC and have an individualized advisory committee that supports their matriculation through residency.

Current resident investigators include:

• Teddy Wohlbold, MD, PhD, inaugural PSTDP resident, PGY3. Teddy has matched at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital for a Neonatology Fellowship to start in July 2022
• Ananthi Rajamoorthi, MD, PhD, PGY2

Resident Wellness

Our resident wellness committee and residency program as a whole are devoted to improving resident well-being and work-life balance through organized activities throughout the year. This year resident wellness programs have included identifying and sharing values; journaling with palliative care; cold brew, baked goods, and live music in the garden; and other creative practices in community.

After Graduation

Graduates are exceptionally prepared for their next career steps, whether it be as primary care providers, pediatric medicine hospitalists, subspecialty fellowship training, educators, or physician-scientists.

Class of 2021

Dori Abel: Pediatric Rheumatology fellowship, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Zaynah Abid: Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellowship, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/CUIMC

Alyssa Baccarella: Pediatric Gastroenterology fellowship, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Hadley Bloomhardt: Pediatric Palliative Care fellowship, Boston Children’s Hospital

Kate Chiarolanzio: Primary Care Pediatrician, Greenwich, CT

Margaret Christian: House doctor, NICU, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/CUIMC

Nicolas Delacruz: Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellowship, New York University

Deandrea Ellis: Summit Medical Group, Primary Care Pediatrician

Stephanie Gati: Pediatric Hospitalist, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Joseph Gutowski: Emergency Medicine Pediatrician, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Margot Hillyer: Pediatric Chief Resident, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/CUIMC

Elise Kang: Pediatric Gastroenterology fellowship, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/CUIMC

Danielle LoRe: Neonatal & Perinatal Medicine fellowship, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/CUIMC

Hannah Major-Monfried: Pediatric Hematology & Oncology fellowship, Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital

Erica McArthur: Neonatal & Perinatal Medicine fellowship, Emory University

Cecilia Mo: Primary Care Pediatrician, New York, NY

Laurie Murray: Pediatric Pulmonology fellowship, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/CUIMC

Ana Rodriguez: Primary Care Pediatrician, Chicago, IL

Katherine Ryan: Pediatric Chief Resident, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/CUIMC

Ansley Schulte: Public Health and Preventative Medicine Resident, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY

Colleen Stalter: Complex Care Pediatrician, Children's Specialized Hospital 

Chelsea Torres: General Pediatrician, University of South Florida Health, Tampa, FL

Hannah Tredway: House doctor, Cardiac NICU, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/CUIMC

Claire Usala: Primary Care Pediatrician, Houston, TX

Tracy Yang: Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Minority Health Policy, Harvard University

Honors and Awards

Hadley Bloomhardt, MD, received The Edward Curnen Prize from the Babies Hospital Alumna Association. The award is presented to the house officer who best exemplifies the ideas and humane and compassionate patient care Dr. Curnen provided during his time at Columbia.

The VP&S Class of 2023 selected six outstanding residents to receive the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism and Excellence in Teaching Award. Nicole Meyers, MD (PGY3 and one of the rising Pediatric Chief Residents for 2022-2023) is one of the recipients. She was asked to give advice to the incoming class, and said, "You are about to embark on some of the most challenging yet rewarding years of your education. Throughout this time and for the rest of your careers, never forget what brought you to the field of medicine in the first place. We all share a common desire to teach and learn from one other, but most importantly to care for our patients at their most vulnerable."

Recent Resident Publication Highlights

Class of 2021

Dori Abel, Stacy P Ardoin, Mark Gorelik. The potential role of Colchicine in preventing coronary vascular disease in childhood-onset lupus: a new view on an old drug. Pediatr Rheumatol Online J. 2021 Feb 16;19(1):15. doi: 10.1186/s12969-021-00504-6.

Rebecca F Carlin, Avital M Fischer, Zachary Pitkowsky, Dori Abel, Taylor B Sewell, Erika Grun Landau, Steve Caddle, Laura Robbins-Milne, Alexis Boneparth, Josh D Milner, Eva W Cheung, Philip Zachariah, Melissa S Stockwell, Brett R Anderson, Mark Gorelik. Discriminating Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children Requiring Treatment from Common Febrile Conditions in Outpatient Settings. J Pediatr. 2021 Feb;229:26-32.e2. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.10.013. Epub 2020 Oct 13.

Zaynah Abid, Nathan Kuppermann, Daniel J Tancredi, Peter S Dayan. Risk of Traumatic Brain Injuries in Infants Younger than 3 Months With Minor Blunt Head Trauma. Ann Emerg Med. 2021 Sep;78(3):321-330.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2021.04.015. Epub 2021 Jun 17.

Dori Abel, Min Ye Shen, Zaynah Abid, Claire Hennigan, Alexis Boneparth, Emily Happy Miller, Anne-Catrin Uhlemann, Danielle K McBrian, Kiran Thakur, Wendy Silver, Jennifer M Bain.  Encephalopathy and bilateral thalamic lesions in a child with MIS-C associated with COVID-19. Neurology. 2020 Oct 20;95(16):745-748. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000010652. Epub 2020 Aug 26.

Kirstin Aschbacher, Steve Cole, Melissa Hagan, Luisa Rivera, Alyssa Baccarella, Owen M Wolkowitz, Alicia F Lieberman, Nicole R Bush. An immunogenomic phenotype predicting behavioral treatment response: Toward precision psychiatry for mothers and children with trauma exposure. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. 2022 Jan;99:350-362. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2021.07.012. Epub 2021 Jul 21.

Stephanie B Gati, Hadley M Bloomhardt, Erica A McArthur. COVID-19: Widening Health Disparities Among Pediatric Populations. Am J Public Health. 2020 Sep;110(9):1358-1359. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2020.305815.

Margot Hillyer, Luz Adriana Matiz, Laura Robbins-Milne, Suzanne Friedman. Who to Test? A Retrospective Study of Lead Testing in High-Risk Children. Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2021 Jun;60(6-7):267-272. doi: 10.1177/00099228211008286.