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Pediatric Residency Home
Message from Dr. Batshaw
Chief Academic Officer, Children’s National Medical Center
My first piece of advice to newcomers is "do not worry." You've already made the right decision in choosing Pediatrics at Children’s National Medical Center. From my personal experience, it has been wonderful to spend my days caring for our most valuable resource, our children. So as you go to visit residency programs, enjoy the experience. There are so many excellent programs, you are likely to have a wonderful experience whichever one you choose. I, of course, hope that you will consider Children's National Medical Center after you complete the program.
Ideally, you will want a program that will give you a breadth of inpatient and outpatient experiences to prepare you for most eventualities. Children’s National opened a 6 story state-of-the-art clinical tower in November 2007 that will be completed over the next several years. This will provide a superb setting for your inpatient experience. A number of you will choose general pediatric practice and will need not only a broad base of knowledge and experience, but skills as a social worker, a psychologist, rehabilitation therapist, and more. Some of you will want to go into subspecialty practice and will need to focus in detail on one particular area through fellowship training. Others of you will seek an academic career in clinical or translational research. Our program can help you reach each of these goals. Being the only independent children's hospital in a large metropolitan area, Children’s National is not only committed to our urban population, but we are also committed to our regional and national population. We also provide general pediatrics and specialty services in satellites throughout the region, and perform top 10 clinical and translational research in our Children's Research Institute.
Our recently redesigned Community Health Track will appeal to those of you with interests in community pediatrics, health policy and advocacy. Through the newly created Children's Health Advocacy Institute, we hope that residents in this track will choose to not only participate in the ongoing research protocols examining disparity of health care delivery to children in Washington, DC, but also to assist in advocacy efforts at the clinical, community, legislative and national levels in their future careers.
If you choose to come to Children’s National, I will have the opportunity of precepting you in our Developmental Pediatrics rotation, my area of clinical expertise. And if you choose a resident elective, I hope you will consider working with me on developing novel therapies for genetic diseases of childhood. I am just one of 340 faculty members ready to share their knowledge with you.
At Children’s National, you will be taught by some of the finest pediatric educators in the country, many of whom have participated in our Master Teachers training program. Our faculty take education most seriously despite this time of health care change. You will have a breadth of clinical experiences, you are likely to make lifelong friends, and you will have an exciting and productive experience which you will remember as one of the most important and formative times of your lives. You may well come as an "undifferentiated lymphocyte.” Here, you will have the opportunity to taste different career paths, and begin your differentiation. I hope to meet you when you come to visit, and I wish you the best, whichever path you choose.
Sincerely,
Mark L. Batshaw, MD
Chief Academic Officer, Children’s National Medical Center
Chief Operating Officer, Children’s Research Institute
Professor and Chairman, Department of Pediatrics
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
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