Residency

NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), ranked best children’s hospital in the region by U.S. News & World Report, is the major provider of primary care for the diverse community of Washington Heights and the major referral hospital for the greater New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut region. The NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Pediatrics Residency program has approximately 26 trainees per residency class and is one of the largest programs in the New York metropolitan region. The program also provides two years of condensed categorial training in pediatrics to residents in combined programs for pediatric neurology and medical genetics and genomics. Pediatric physician scientists are invited to engage in research during up to six months of elective time in the categorical program or eleven protected months as part of the Physician Scientist Training and Development Program track.

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

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

Our residency program is guided by the core values of humility, adaptability, accountability, integrity, kindness, and hard work. We believe in connectedness and community, and we embrace the growth mindset. We strive for continual personal and professional development, which enables us to provide better health care to the children, families, and communities that we serve. We aim to train tomorrow’s pediatric leaders in clinical care, education, scholarship, and advocacy.

Program Leadership

• Patrisha Woolard, MD, PhD
  • Program Director
• Sumeet Banker, MD, MPH
  • Associate Program Director
• Candace Johnson, MD
  • Associate Program Director
• Mariellen Lane, MD
  • Associate Program Director

Achieving Health Equity

Our residency curriculum is focused on the goal of achieving health equity. We work toward this by identifying and addressing child health inequities within our medical system, community, and society, and by solidifying equity as a pillar of care within pediatrics. This lens has been embedded into chief-resident and resident-led teaching conferences, including a longitudinal health equity conference series.

ENRICH (Engaging Residents in Cultural Humility)

ENRICH (Engaging Residents in Cultural Humility) Program is an annual, week-long program-wide experience. Afternoon workshop sessions are facilitated by faculty actively involved in the Pediatric Diversity and Inclusion Council and Community Pediatrics. The ENRICH Curriculum aims to:

• Explore multiple perspectives in cross-cultural patient encounters
• Increase understanding of factors that decrease patient and provider satisfaction and therapeutic partnerships
• Build practical skills in addressing issues of equity in clinical encounters
• Engage in reflections around next steps for improving effective cross-cultural communication

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 health equity.

For ambulatory care, residents are assigned to one of four hospital-affiliated and 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
• Participate in annual resident-led quality improvement projects based in continuity practices
• Become experienced in telehealth skills
• Work with a variety of community agencies located in Northern Manhattan
• 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

Residents engaged in legislative advocacy through an annual visit to Albany in the winter of 2023.

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 must participate in clinic site-specific quality improvement projects and a faculty-mentored scholarly project and present their research at the annual resident scholarly project forum. Second- and third-year residents can choose to research one morning per week or complete a research elective rotation. Many residents publish their work in peer-reviewed publications and present scholarly work at national and international meetings.

Given the challenges that the pandemic posed, the program relaunched as RAMP (Resident Academic Mentored Projects) under the direction of Shoshana Friedman, MD, with the following goals:

• To provide a mentored scholarly project experience for all categorical pediatric residents that meets the residency program requirements as well as the ACGME requirements for scholarship
• To provide a structured curriculum for skills in scholarly projects including identification of an area of study, conducting a literature review, developing a research question, submitting an IRB proposal, data collection, data analysis, preparation of academic presentations and academic papers
• To foster mentorship between faculty and residents
• To assist residents in future career pathways and trajectories and the role of scholarship in those goals
• To prepare residents for future academic work and competitive applications to subspecialty fellowships and academic jobs

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 comprehensive, personalized training to talented MDs and MD/PhDs committed to both research and pediatrics. The program accepts one resident each year and provides 11 months of completely protected research time over the three years of residency training. Participants can work in any lab at CUIMC and have an individualized advisory committee that supports their scientific training during residency.

The inaugural PSTDP resident, Teddy Wohlbold, MD, PhD, graduated in 2022 and is a second-year neonatology fellow at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at CUIMC.

Current physician scientists in the residency program include:

• Olivia Maguire, MD, PhD, PGY2 (PSTDP)
• William Fyke MD, PhD, PGY2 (Pediatrics/Medical Genetics)
• Kenneth Gunasekera, MD, PhD PGY1 (PSTDP)
• Colleen Longley, MD, PhD PGY1 (Categorical Pediatrics)
• Irina Gavryutina, MD, PhD, PGY1 (Categorical Pediatrics)
• Dixita Viswanath, MD, PhD PGY1 (Categorial Pediatrics)

Resident Wellness

Our resident wellness committee and residency program are devoted to improving resident well-being and work-life balance through organized activities throughout the year. This year resident wellness programs have included monthly wellness sessions, narrative medicine programming, a department-wide resident and fellow appreciation week, and other creative practices in community.  The department’s POWER (Promoting Overall Well-being, Engagement and Resilience in Pediatrics) advisory board includes two pediatric resident representatives.

Honors and Awards

• Danielle Steinberg, MD
  • Graduate NYP Staff of the Month, November 2023
• Amanda Simard, MD
  • Gold Humanism and Excellence in Teaching Award, January 2024
• John Gaipa, MD
  • Awarded the Edward Curnen Prize, for humane and compassionate patient care, from the Babies Hospital Alumni Association

Recent Resident Publication Highlights