Our program has a fun and supportive culture, and we truly see all of our residents as individuals. Much of the innovation you see in our program came from the strong contributions of our amazing residents. Our leadership is committed to seeing our trainees grow into wonderful pediatricians and leaders, but we also want to see our residents be happy. We see this commitment to our residents and the patients they care for in the following values we identify as core to our mission:
Clinical Excellence
Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital is a major referral center for New England with advanced services in every subspecialty. We are proud to be ranked consistently in the US News and World Report “Best Children’s Hospitals” in many subspecialties every year. We keep patients and families at the forefront of everything we do at YalePeds, and decisions we make in the residency program are always driven by the question “what is best for the kids we serve?”
The Yale University School of Medicine, School of Nursing and School of Public Health are world-renowned. Residents in our program have connected with faculty mentors in our department, across the medical school and elsewhere at our university to grow as physicians and scientists.
Diversity Equity and Inclusion
Yale Pediatrics’ commitment to principles of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is interwoven into multiple aspects of life in our program. We seek to actively recruit candidates from diverse backgrounds through a variety of approaches including presence at residency fairs and a strong alumni network. We host visiting students through a funded clerkship, and we create opportunities in the recruitment process for candidates to connect with our diverse resident community including but not limited to events hosted by our diversity council. For information about a virtual visiting elective, please contact Dr. Rachel Osborn at rachel.osborn@yale.edu.
2022-2023 Yale Pediatrics Diversity Council
Co-Chair
Co-Chair
Community Outreach Chair
Community Outreach Chair
Recruitment Chair
Recruitment Chair
Wellness Chair
Wellness Chair
In 2016 we created our first diversity council – a group of residents committed to supporting and growing Yale Pediatrics’ commitment to recruitment, education and support. This council thrives under the mentorship and leadership of Marietta Vazquez, our vice-chair for DEI in the department of pediatrics and interfaces with residency program leadership on a regular basis. Diversity initiatives at the hospital and Medical School are also supported by Dr. Inginia Genao and Dr. Darrin Lattimore.
Vice Chair of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Department of Pediatrics
Yale School of Medicine
Deputy Dean and Chief Diversity Officer
Yale School of Medicine
Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Office of Graduate Medical Education
Yale-New Haven Hospital
We approach diversity in our curriculum deliberately, with every lecturer encouraged to think of how disparities and/or systemic racism contributes to patient care in the topic of choice, be it quality improvement or type 1 diabetes. We also protect 10-15% of our noon conference curriculum to discussion of health disparities, racism and advocacy around issues of social justice.
The Well Physician
The Yale Pediatric Residency Program takes a wholistic view of wellness for our trainees. We live the belief that doctors can only be well in an environment that promotes wellness both at work and at home. This is accomplished through robust feedback mechanisms including our Program Evaluation Committee, our Diversity Council, our Well-Ones committee and our class-specific APD mentorship structure in which we hear what isn’t working well and make changes in the operational design to promote fulfillment at work. We build and support multiple opportunities for residents to get to know one another, as a supportive culture often begins with the resident community. We have wellness as part of our curricular design as well as dedicated faculty support for teaching and mentorship in this arena.
We also know that residents have lives outside the hospital, and we prioritize helping residents connect with family and friends away from work. Every resident is guaranteed to spend at least 4 days around one holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years or another of their choice) away from work. We also maintain a “short call” system, allowing for daytime ward residents to leave at 4pm 2-3 days per week so that they have evening hours to connect with people and things important to them.
The hospital salary and benefits provided also allow residents to focus on learning without some of the financial stressors inherent to this time of their career. The salary:cost of living ratio outperforms many other programs, and there is retirement account matching.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, our hospital has invested significantly in the health and well-being of our residents, providing a reliable and accurate dashboard showing our PPE supply with clear communication around planning. We created ward structures for pediatric volunteers on adult units with consistent support from faculty who had training in both pediatrics and internal medicine. Our residents were able to provide amazing care to patients in this time of crisis, but do so with appropriate protection. We are proud to say that we have had no pediatric residents infected with Covid-19 thus far.
Residency is a tremendously stressful time, and we also want to insure that our teammates who might need mental health support have a variety of options:
- - Telemedicine mental health support with a $5 co-pay, fully confidential
- – Employee and Family Resource Center
Advocacy
To be a pediatrician means to affect the entire lifespan of individuals, and our residents are given ample opportunity to use their voices to affect change on both local and more expansive stages. We allow residents to engage with advocacy through channels that fit their goals and interests through “healthy lives” afternoons in the outpatient rotations, in which residents have a half-day free from clinical duties so they can connect with community agencies or advocacy work.
The Flourishing Families (FF) is an advocacy track and curriculum designed to empower Yale Pediatric Residents with the knowledge and skills to work as physician advocates in the New Haven community and beyond. FF has a particular focus on teaching and addressing structural health inequities and racism.
Residents participate in a broad range of learning and advocacy opportunities including helping families address legal challenges through our Medical-Legal Partnership with The Center for Children’s Advocacy, providing written and oral testimony for the CT General Assembly with mentorship from the American Academy of Pediatrics CT Chapter, teaching health classes to immigrants and refugees in partnership with Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, and writing Op-Eds for local news publications to just to name a few.
Scholarship
Yale University’s Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health are world-renowned in patient-oriented and laboratory-based research. Residents benefit from the availability and accessibility of nationally and internationally-recognized faculty across Yale. Residents have connected with faculty mentors throughout the University to grow as physicians and scientists.
Our residents engage in scholarship in multiple areas: research, education, advocacy, global health, and quality improvement. We also have a robust evidence-based medicine curriculum to teach all residents about the fundamentals of using research in practice and conducting their own research. Our residency program also has a research track which includes additional training in the conduct of research.
The Department of Pediatrics provides extensive support to residents engaged in scholarship, including free use of statisticians in the Department and the Chair’s Award for Presentation of Scholarship (CAPS) which provides up to $1,000 to present scholarship at a national meeting.
