Neonatal-Perinatal Fellowship

The Neonatal-Perinatal Fellowship Program at Children's National Health System/ George Washington University is a 3 year program designed to provide training in neonatal-perinatal medicine for candidates who have successfully completed their pediatric residency training. Clinical training is provided in two state-of-the-art NICUs, one located at Children's National and the other at the George Washington University Hospital.

The NICU at Children's National is a 54-bed quaternary level unit with more than 700 admissions per year. The program provides extensive training in management of respiratory distress, with conventional and high frequency oscillatory ventilation, nitric oxide, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) capabilities. Infants with a multitude of medical and/or surgical problems are transferred from over 30 hospitals in the region. The neonatology team works with faculty members representing all medical and surgical subspecialties to co-manage infants with specialty needs.

The George Washington University NICU is affiliated with the High Risk Perinatal Program at GWU. Rotations through this unit provide experience in management of the high-risk neonate in the delivery room and post delivery. Prenatal consultative experience is achieved through a multidisciplinary team approach with members of the Perinatology Team. Holy Cross Hospital, a private community facility affiliated with the pediatric and neonatal training programs at Children's National provides a perinatal one month rotation for the second and third year Fellows. This unit has over 8000 deliveries and a very active perinatal service, providing additional experience in a community base setting. The Neonatal Divisions at Children’s National and GWUH presently have eight full-time, board certified neonatologists and six neonatal-perinatal fellows.

Neonatal Fellows are assigned a faculty advisor during their first year. This advisor provides direction and support during the three years of training. The fellow's research project can be developed in several areas. The neonatal attending staff members are involved in research ranging from translational research, physiology research, cell biology research, and epidemiology research. Fellows also have access to the Children's Research Institute (CRI) and the faculty working in the CRI. Research grants for fellows are awarded twice a year through the CRI. On-going research in the department includes animal studies investigating various types of ventilation, including nitric oxide, liquid ventilation, and ECMO. Cerebral physiologic studies are ongoing, evaluating the effect of ECMO on the developing brain and altered vascular reactivity. Other members of the department doing research at the cell level are conducting their work off site at NIH. There are opportunities for fellows to develop projects under these attendings at the NIH laboratories.

The fellowship program offers opportunities to the academically oriented, as well as the clinically oriented candidate. However, the clinically oriented fellow will participate in research according to the guidelines for the Neonatal Perinatal Boards.

Prior to starting the fellowship, candidates must have completed a 3-year pediatric residency training, be board certified/eligible in pediatrics and be eligible for a D.C. license to practice medicine.