Pediatric Emergency Medicine

Program Goal: The PEM fellowship at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is a 2-year (EM-trained) or 3-year (Pediatrics-trained) program designed to produce stellar clinicians able to care for acutely and critically ill children in the emergency setting, whether they are bound for a career in community practice or academics.

Program Highlights

• Well-rounded clinical experience in two PED’s which complement each other. Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is an academic public hospital PED that sees ~25,000 pediatric patients annually, is a level I trauma center and a pediatric critical medical patient receiving center, and serves the South Bay community providing “bread and butter” EM care. Children’s Hospital of Orange County is an ED in a tertiary care private children’s hospital that sees nearly 100,000 pediatric patients annually, is a level II trauma center, and provides general and subspecialty pediatric EM care to a large geographic area around Orange County.
  
• Our program prides itself on providing fellows flexibility of curriculum and electives within the confines of ACGME-required rotations to accommodate individual learning needs, whether the fellow is primarily EM or pediatrics residency-trained, interested in a career in research, administration, education, or wishes to explore other areas such as ultrasound, social EM, or EMS. We also train combined PEM-US fellows!
  
• Graduated autonomy with rapid attainment of independence in seeing patients and supervising residents and running the pediatric emergency department at Harbor-UCLA.
  
• Numerous opportunities for education including: protected conference time twice a month, POCUS training with ultrasound faculty, PALS, NRP, and ATLS, simulation center, cadaver labs, research methodology training and mentorship.
  
• Fellows have ample opportunity to gain procedure skills through procedure labs, a pediatric anesthesia rotation, a rotation in a high-acuity PICU, training in a busy level I trauma center, a well equipped and staffed simulation center, a fellowship housed within a Department of Emergency Medicine with a well-established EM residency program, and skills sessions as part of the core curriculum.
  
• Ability to develop skills in classroom and bedside teaching through supervision of residents, preparation and presentation of formal lectures to medical students and EM residents, and participation in presenting (with an emphasis on interactive lecture styles, e.g. games, questions, panels, etc) as part of our fellowship core curriculum, which repeats every two years. Mentorship from nationally recognized faculty speakers.
  
• EM residency-trained fellows do 2 shifts/month in the adult ED to maintain their skills in treating adults, and have the ability to moonlight in the adult ED as well.
  
• Funds are available to support fellows presenting research at academic meetings.

Curriculum – more information here

The curriculum is designed depending on whether the PEM fellow is primarily pediatrics or EM residency-trained, and is further customized according to the fellows’ needs and goals during individual meetings with the program director.

EM residency-trained (2-year track)

Pediatrics residency-trained (3-year track)

Electives

Elective opportunities include: orthopedics, CVICU at CHOC, outpatient cardiology at UCLA, toxicology at UCLA, Burn center at LAC/USC, radiology, additional ultrasound, advanced EMS and disaster, child and adolescent psychiatry, pediatric dermatology at CHLA, public health, medical Spanish, FOAM, as well as individually arranged electives

Eligibility and Selection

Selection will be based on the dossier of the applicant; clinical, leadership, teaching, and supervisory skills; ability, aptitude and academic credentials; and, our program’s fit with the applicant’s needs and desires for training. Professionalism and communication skills will also be considered. Our program greatly benefits from having both pediatrics and EM residency-trained faculty and fellows.

Check out our faculty and alumni’s FOAM presence

PEMplaybook.org – Tim Horeczko, Program Director

PEMsource.org – Kelly Young, Program Director Emeritus

EIIC toolkits – Mohsen Saidinejad, DEM Faculty

ACEP Simbox – Ilene Claudius, DEM Faculty

EM ReSCu Peds – Patricia Padlipsky, DEM Faculty

PEMgems.com – Joe Ravera, PEM Fellow alumnus

EMdocs.net – Manny Singh, DEM Faculty

Wikem.org – Ross Donaldson, DEM Faculty

IDHEAL Social EM Modules – Multiple DEM Faculty & former residents

Contact Information

Timothy Horeczko, MD, MSCR, FACEP, FAAP
Director, Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship
Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine
thoreczko@dhs.lacounty.gov

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