Medical Student & Resident Education
The Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology provides educational opportunities for medical students and pediatric residents, in addition to our fully accredited fellowship program. Our goal is to impart knowledge, instill excitement for learning, and translate questions into focused areas of research.
Third-Year Medical Students
During their third year, medical students from UT Southwestern spend eight weeks at Children's Health℠ Children's Medical Center Dallas learning pediatrics. Approximately one-fourth of these students will spend two weeks on the Inpatient Hematology/Oncology Service. During this time, the students assist in caring for children with a wide range of hematologic and oncologic disorders, including sickle cell disease, hemophilia, aplastic anemia, leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumors, bone tumors, and other childhood cancers.
Fourth-Year Medical Students
Fourth-year medical students have the option to take a four-week elective that allows them to work in the outpatient hematology/oncology clinics and the Pauline Allen Gill Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children's. During this session, you see children with cancer and blood disorders, as well as children who are referred to the Gill Center for further evaluation. This outpatient rotation allows the students to see these children in the clinic setting to complement learning in the inpatient area, where our children are often more acutely ill. With prior approval, this elective is also available for a limited number of fourth-year students from other medical schools.
Residents
Pediatric Hematology-Oncology counts as one of the core subspecialties for pediatric residents at UT Southwestern. All PL-1s spend four weeks covering the Inpatient Hematology/Oncology Service at Children’s, and each month a PL-2 or PL-3 supervising resident, plus two or three PL-1s, join the service.
The month-long rotation teaches residents to care for very sick patients with complicated life-threatening conditions. Over the course of the rotation, several afternoons each week include enhanced learning opportunities, which may include lectures, pathology review, and bedside teaching. The curriculum covers most, if not all, of the American Board of Pediatrics Content Specifications for "Disorders of the Blood and Neoplastic Disorders."
Pediatric residents may also elect to spend a month in the outpatient clinic at the Gill Center during their second or third year. This assignment allows the residents to learn about, and help care for, children with a wide range of hematologic or oncologic conditions not typically seen in the inpatient setting. Residents spend time in several clinics, including general hematology, hemophilia, thrombosis, general oncology, neuro-oncology, and stem cell transplantation. They also attend educational programs offered by the Division, including weekly hemostasis and sickle cell team meetings, hematological malignancy and solid tumor patient care conferences, a weekly research seminar, and a tumor board.