A Message From the Chairman (Interim)
 Benard P. Dreyer, M.D. Chairman (Interim) NYU Department of Pediatrics |
Dear Applicant:
Welcome to the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine Pediatric Residency Program. Thank you for coming to visit us today and for considering our program.
You have already made the most important choice: deciding on a career in pediatrics. For that choice, you should be celebrated. From my own life experience, I can tell you that I look forward to each day that I care for our most precious resource—children.
The training of the next generation of pediatric clinicians, teachers, and researchers is among the highest priorities for our department. Our mission is to help each resident achieve her/his career goals by providing a foundation of knowledge, skills, and critical thinking for a rewarding career in pediatrics.
Over the past years, approximately half of our residents have pursued careers in community-based pediatrics, while the other half have chosen careers in academic medicine and subspecialty pediatrics. Our program is designed to prepare residents for both these career tracks.
These are exciting times for the Department of Pediatrics and the Pediatric Residency Program at NYU. The department is in the midst of a multimillion dollar expansion, leading to the largest increase in faculty and programs in over 15 years. $24 million has already been raised to expand both our physical plant and our faculty.
Our new Dean, Robert Grossman, MD, has designated Children’s Services as a strategic growth area for the medical school and medical center.
In the past three years, we have recruited 25 new faculty to the department and related subspecialties. Some of our new recruits include:
- a pediatric neuro-oncologist and a pediatric oncologist to expand our growing and world class hematology-oncology program
- an additional pediatric surgeon to start a minimally invasive surgery program
- a Director of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition
- a Director of Pediatric Cardiology with a national and international reputation
- two additional pediatric cardiologists
- two new pediatric intensivists
- two additional neonatologists
- an additional pediatric neurosurgeon
- an additional pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon to expand our pediatric heart surgery program
- and an additional pediatric endocrinologist.
We have also started a pediatric hospitalist program at Tisch and Bellevue Hospitals. The program consists of several new hospitalists who have also been added to our general academic pediatric teaching staff.
We have recruited two new pediatric emergency medicine subspecialists to expand our pediatric emergency medicine service at Tisch Hospital. And we are in the process of recruiting a Director of Pediatric Pulmonology, an additional pediatric rheumatologist, additional faculty in pediatric intensive care, pediatric and pediatric ENT, as well as researchers in general academic pediatrics.
Perhaps most important to prospective residents, we have appointed a new Pediatric Residency Program Director, Rhonda Graves, M.D. and an Associate Residency Program Director, Steve Paik, M.D., Ed.M.
These new faculty expand the volume and complexity of the clinical program and add tremendously to your experience as residents. Perhaps even more importantly, these faculty will be your teachers, and will be developing research programs that you will able to participate in.
At the same time that we are recruiting faculty, we are also expanding our physical plant with a new beautiful ambulatory building that recently opened at Bellevue Hospital, and a new children’s services ambulatory center that opened last spring at NYU.
These are also exciting times in the residency training program. We have developed great new elective opportunities for our residents. As of July 2005, NYU residents are now able to choose from among three new elective opportunities:
- International Health Elective with one of our best Pediatric Infectious Disease faculty, who has set up a Pediatric HIV Program in Mombassa, Kenya as part of the Clinton Foundation International Pediatric AIDS Program, which he directs.
- Community Pediatrics and Advocacy Elective, focusing on urban health care of children, and spanning the breath of Department of Health and public health issues, school health, and community advocacy activities.
- Research Elective, in which residents, under the mentorship of one of our faculty, learn research skills, implement research ideas, and are guided in presentation of research at our own Resident and Fellow Research Day, as well as at regional and national conferences.
To enhance the resident educational program, we have installed a state-of-the-art videoconferencing system. The videoconferencing equipment allows residents at our three major sites (Tisch inpatient, Bellevue inpatient, and Bellevue ambulatory care) to participate in conferences where they are caring for patients.
We have a superb group of faculty, who successfully blend teaching, research, patient care, and leadership at a local and national level. You will be meeting with our faculty, but take the opportunity to look through our booklet and read about many more of them.
When you meet with our residents, make sure that you find out about our training program directly from them. Our residents are actively involved in both the structural and curricular components of their educational program and have designed exciting peer-run educational activities.
This is a program in which the residents are on the inside, not the outside, of the decision-making process regarding patient care, and in which the residents can walk into the office of any faculty to get patient care advice, educational input, career planning and personal guidance.
This certainly includes my office. I enjoy having lunch with a group of residents most Wednesdays, and I am proud of the quality of residents we recruit to this program, and the feeling of empowerment that they have developed.
Most importantly, these are exciting times for you personally. You are really crossing the threshold from student to physician, from learning only to integrating learning into the fabric of your doctoring.
Best Wishes and Good Luck!
Benard P. Dreyer, M.D.
