Medical Genetics Residency

The Medical Genetics Training Program at Children’s National Hospital is a two-year residency program in medical genetics—18 months are spent in clinical and laboratory-based training, and six months are protected for research projects. Applicants must have completed at least one year in an ACGME-accredited training program, with priority given to applicants that have completed a full residency in an ACGME-accredited program.

This ACGME-accredited program offers trainees experiences in one of the largest medical genetics and metabolic centers in the United States. As one of the NORD Centers of Excellence, the Children’s National program boasts 12 board certified medical geneticists, eight with biochemical training, 13 genetic counselors, three metabolic dieticians and a fully operational biochemical and molecular genetic laboratory. Together, this creates an outstanding learning environment. With strong inter-disciplinary and multi-specialty support, there is a strong emphasis on diagnosis-based clinics, including NF1 clinic, craniofacial clinic, skeletal dysplasia, disorders of sexual development and metabolic clinic.

Participants in the program will spend time both in the outpatient and inpatient settings. The outpatient time is dedicated mostly in our new clinic at the Rare Disease Institute which is right next to the Research and Innovation Campus where our clinical and core laboratories are located and research opportunities are available. The inpatient program includes consults both at Children’s National, which includes a tertiary care neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), and the adult delivery hospital located next door. This allows for a full range of neonatal consults. As the only free-standing children’s hospital in the District of Columbia, Children’s National attracts routine genetic and metabolic diagnoses and rarer disorders as a tertiary center and due to its interaction with the NIH more research and collaboration options are available.

Children’s National is located in the heart of Washington, D.C. A shuttle ride to the Capitol building or a metro ride to the Smithsonian on the National Mall makes for an excellent quality of life for the Children’s National trainees. Due to our location, advocacy opportunities for participants interested in rare disease are vast.