Resident Education
UCSD Pediatric, Pediatric Neurology, and Medicine/Pediatrics Residency Programs – Adolescent Medicine Rotation
Course Director: Dr. Maya Kumar
UCSD Pediatrics and Medicine/Pediatrics residents will complete their Adolescent Medicine Rotation during their 3rd year; Pediatric Neurology residents will complete the rotation during their 2nd year. The 4-week rotation is divided into 2 weeks at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego and 2 weeks at the Naval Medical Center of San Diego.
While at the Rady Children's Hospital site, residents will spend almost every morning and some afternoons rounding on the Medical-Behavioral Unit (MBU), a multidisciplinary inpatient eating disorder unit with care provided by an attending pediatrician, a psychology team, a dietitian, and a consult psychiatry team. While on the MBU, residents will learn to assess and manage adolescents presenting with severe malnutrition, become familiar with diagnostic criteria for a variety of eating disorders, participate in a multidisciplinary approach to family-based treatment , and gain exposure to the legal and ethical challenges in the treatment of eating disorders.
Residents will spend several afternoons at the Rady Children's Hospital Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine Outpatient Clinic. Here, they will assess and treat young people up to 26 years old for a variety of conditions including menstrual disorders, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, ADHD/ADD, complex contraceptive needs, adolescent pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and gender dysphoria. Residents will gain familiarity with minor consent laws, limits of confidentiality, and management of psychosocially complex patients.
Residents will spend at least one afternoon at the San Diego County STD Clinic, a high-volume community clinic treating adolescents and adults. Residents will learn the differential diagnoses for different genitourinary symptoms, laboratory investigations for STDs, and will practice obtaining sensitive sexual histories and performing genital exams
Residents will spend one morning at San Diego Juvenile Hall providing medical assessments for incarcerated youth. Residents will learn more about common physical and mental health needs of incarcerated youth. This experience will give residents an opportunity to consider what social determinants of health, including poverty, abuse, neglect, trafficking, trauma, mental health issues, and substance abuse, contribute to juvenile law-breaking and incarceration.