Pediatric Transplant Surgery Fellowship

Objectives for the program include:

• To provide adequate didactic teaching and exposure to clinical experiences that will provide the trainee with the opportunity to become competent and effective in evaluating pediatric and adolescent patients for liver, kidney or intestinal transplantation, including consideration for live donor transplantation.
• To provide adequate didactic teaching and exposure to clinical experiences that will provide the trainee with the opportunity to become competent and effective in preparing and listing pediatric and adolescent patients for liver, kidney or intestinal transplantation, including familiarization with local, regional and national listing and allocation policies.
• To provide adequate didactic teaching and exposure to clinical experiences that will provide the trainee with the opportunity to become competent and effective in performing liver and kidney transplants in pediatric and adolescent patients.
• To provide adequate didactic teaching and exposure to clinical experiences that will provide the trainee with the opportunity to become competent and effective in managing pediatric and adolescent patients who have undergone liver, kidney or intestinal/multivisceral transplantation, including managing immunosuppression and medical and surgical complications on transplantation.

Research projects are encouraged. All presentations at quality reviews and discussion of complications are accompanied by a review of the literature.

Focused subject reviews lead to retrospective analyses of outcome measures. These lead to abstract submissions, presentations at national and international conferences and publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Patient care conferences include discussion of kidney, liver and intestinal transplant patients both in their pre-transplant phase, as well as post-transplant ongoing management issues. Listing decisions, donor issues and pre-transplant decision-making is taught to the transplant surgery fellows in order to make them aware of fundamental issues preceding transplantation.

Intraoperative teaching takes the form of graded responsibility in performing carefully supervised phases of the operation under staff supervision. Principles of vascular surgery are taught in all transplanted organs

Trainees are taught multi-organ procurements.

Quality reviews and morbidity conferences focus on complications, improved delivery of healthcare and reviews of clinical issues in dialysis, post kidney, liver and intestinal transplantation.

Daily multidisciplinary rounds are mandatory for all fellows.

It is the responsibility of each trainee to be aware of current and future assigned responsibilities, including call and communication responsibilities. If a trainee has specific call requests, they are to be communicated to the program director. Although every effort will be made to accommodate these requests, not all requests can be granted. All vacation requests must be submitted on appropriate forms to the program director. These will be granted based on timeliness of submission and departmental flexibility.

It is the responsibility of each trainee to evaluate inpatients to which they are assigned. They are to provide a complete history, physical exam and evaluation that are documented in the patient chart. If there are questions, the trainee must contact the attending physician assigned to the case for discussion of these issues. If the assigned attending physician is not available, the trainee should contact the first-call attending physician for discussion.

If the trainee identifies the need for consultation for a patient, this consultation must occur only with the concurrence of the attending physician.

No procedures or anesthetic shall be performed on a patient without the knowledge or concurrence of the attending physician staff. Attending physician staff must be present for every case. In the extraordinary situation of a life-threatening process, the trainee is empowered to begin lifesaving actions without the presence of an attending physician as long as the attending physician staff has been notified and is en route.

It is the responsibility of each trainee to communicate with attending physician staff about all meaningful changes in patient status throughout the perioperative period.

Timeliness of communication is necessary to ensure optimal patient care.

Fellowship candidates need to be board eligible in surgery or pediatric surgery.

For more information or to apply, please contact Riccardo A. Superina, MD, at 312-227-4624 or Denise Jones at 312-227-4599.