We value an importance to provide individualized learning experience for trainees. Fellows have opportunities to select their tracks of training based on career development goals.
Washington University School of Medicine has a campus-wide and long-term commitment to building up a collaborative community of academic educators. The Academy of Educators is a large multi-disciplinary organization at Washington University that offers workshops, mentoring, and training sessions to support career development for our educators.
The three-year Clinical Educator Track is for fellows who are considering careers as clinical educators. After the first year of fellowship training, depending on their progress in the program fellows may be supported to participate in the Washington University Teaching Physician Pathway (WUTPP), a program that includes an application process. The WUTPP is a one-year program to prepare fellows with the knowledge, skills, experience, and mentorship necessary to develop as competent and inspired clinician-educators, and as future leaders in medical education. The program consists of two 2-week courses of didactic sessions and workshops in learning theory, curriculum design, feedback and assessment, survey design, small group facilitation skills, presentation skills, and professional development guides for academic educators.
Fellows on this track will also be encouraged to attend the Methods of Education Scholarship course to develop their skills for education research and scholarship if this will complement with their education research and career plan. Fellows will have protected time to attend these courses.
Example inpatient and clinic schedule
- First-year: Inpatient 6-7 months, and 2-3 clinics per week
- Second-year: Inpatient 4-8 weeks, and 1-2 clinics per week
- Third-year: Inpatient 4-8 weeks, and 1-2 clinics per week
Suggested didactic lectures and conferences
- Pediatric Rheumatology Didactic Lecture Series (weekly)
- Rheumatology Grand Rounds (weekly)
- Pediatric Clinical Immunology Conference (bi-weekly)
- Immunology Conference for Rheumatology fellows (every 2-3 weeks)
- Pediatric Clinical/Translational Investigator Seminar (weekly)
The three-year Master Clinician Track is for fellows who desire to acquire broad domains of skills to provide superior patient care and thrive to become a role model in professional development and mentors for others. After obtaining a broad clinical experience of rheumatologic diseases in the first-year of their training, in the second and third years of their training, they will allow them to spend elective time locally to gain additional insights to their areas of interest. In addition, they will have an opportunity to dedicate additional time in patient care in clinics and inpatient and to observe master clinicians at Washington University who have distinguished themselves by the breadth of their clinical skills, outstanding personal and emotional traits and teaching skills. The career goal of this pathway is to become master clinicians.
Example inpatient and clinic schedule
- First-year: Inpatient 6-7 months, and 2-3 clinics per week
- Second-year: Inpatient 6-8 weeks, and 2 clinics per week
- Third-year: Inpatient 6-8 weeks, and 2 clinics per week
Suggested didactic lectures and conferences
- Pediatric Rheumatology Didactic Lecture Series (weekly)
- Rheumatology Grand Rounds (weekly)
- Pediatric Clinical Immunology Conference (bi-weekly)
- Immunology Conference for Rheumatology fellows (every 2-3 weeks)
- Pediatric Clinical/Translational Investigator Seminar (weekly)
This pathway is dedicated to training and preparing fellows for successful careers in academic medicine as physician-scientists. Dedicated research training time will start in the 2nd year of fellowship. Fellows will have access to a wealth of mentors throughout Washington University. This program supports promising fellows who have the goal of establishing investigative faculty careers.
There are several NIH-funded T32 training grants within the department, and research track fellows are often supported by these or through individual career development awards. Regardless, the Fellowship program will support protected time with > 75% of their effort to research in a basic or translational science laboratory during their second and third years of fellowship, and it is expected that they will devote a significant amount of time to robust research work.
Example inpatient and clinical schedule
- First-year: Inpatient 6-7 months, and 2-3 clinics per week
- Second-year: Inpatient 0-4 weeks, and 1 clinic per week
- Third-year: Inpatient 0-4 weeks, and 1 clinic per week
- Fourth-year (for PePSTP fellows participating in the ABP accelerated research track): Inpatient 0-4 weeks, and 1 clinic per week
Suggested didactic lectures and conferences
- Rheumatology Translational Research Conference (weekly)
- Rheumatology Grand Rounds (weekly)
- Translational Immunology conference (monthly)
- Pediatric Molecular Medicine Series (weekly)
- Pediatric Clinical/Translational Investigator Seminar (weekly)
- Immunology seminar (weekly), and other seminar series focused on research in medicine, https://pediatrics.wustl.edu/items/pepstp/