Current Environment:


1.)    Boston Children’s Hospital is one of the largest tertiary pediatric hospitals in the world and the primary pediatric teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School.

  • Clinical Highlights: 40 Clinical Departments, 204 Specialized Clinical Programs, 397 Licensed Beds, 22,600 Inpatient Discharges, 471,641 Outpatients Visits, 55,868 Emergency Department Visits, 23,491 Surgical Cases
  • Research Highlights: Boston Children’s Hospital is the world’s largest and most active research enterprise based at a pediatric hospital with more than 225 million in annual funding, 600 scientists, and more than 800,000 square feet of state of the art laboratory space.

2.)    The Department of Otolaryngology and Communication Enhancement is one of the oldest pediatric otolaryngology programs in the world.

  • Statistical Highlights: 15 Attending Physicians,29 Audiologists, 28 Speech Pathologists, 8 Nurses, 12 Physician Assistants,  23,000 ORL clinical visits, 17,000 audiology visits, 11,000 speech and feeding visits, 8,800 surgical procedures per year

3.)    Fellows Simulation Training: In order to improve surgical team collaboration and safety in the operating room, the department runs an ongoing medical simulation program. This program teaches Pediatric Otolaryngology fellows, as well as Otolaryngology residents rotating through Children’s Hospital, the Crisis Resource Management (CRM) principles of leadership, teamwork and communication. Utilizing state of the art simulation techniques, a multidisciplinary team including the ORL trainees experience high acuity, low frequency simulated clinical scenarios. The scenarios are in situ and occur in the actual BCH operating rooms with anesthesiologists, nurses and ancillary personnel native to the OR environment. Not only do the simulations give the fellows experience in improving their teamwork skills, but they also afford them the opportunity to lead a surgical team during a crisis situation. Each simulation is followed by a debriefing session led by trained facilitators. The course is comprised of a short didactic session and includes three simulations followed by the debriefing sessions. Depending on scheduling, four to six courses are given per academic year.

4.)     Hospital and Medical School Libraries (see below):

 

a.) Boston Children’s Hospital Library

Boston Children’s Hospital has a more than 5000 square foot library located on the first floor of the main building. Residents/Fellows have access to the library 24 hours a day and can access the on-line resources from any hospital computer.

Library resources include

  • Books, journals, patient education materials, databases, audiovisuals and other materials available on-site.
  • Online access through the hospital's intranet to the online book catalog, journal holdings list, various databases, library request forms, literature research requests, class schedules, and other electronic resources. Literature searches conducted by library staff using Medline and other online search services.
  • Interlibrary loan and document delivery.
  • Training on various databases, the internet, reprint file management software and evidence-based medicine for departments, groups and individuals.
  • Current awareness services for departments or individuals that feature the tables of contents of relevant professional journals or topic-based searches.
  • A discount book-ordering service.
  • Videos of both Medical and Surgical Grand Rounds
  • A specialized Career and Faculty Development Center has been established for physicians seeking information on grants, fellowships, scientific writing and presentation resources, practice management, and academic careers.

    b.) Harvard Medical School Library

    The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, one of the largest medical libraries in the world, is available to the fellows. The Countway Library holds more than 630,000 volumes, subscribes to 3,500 current journal titles and houses over 10,000 non-current biomedical journal titles. The library also houses one of the world's leading medical history collections, and provides access to many electronic information resources. The Countway hosts The Center for the History of Medicine, which includes Archives and Records Management Program for the schools of the Harvard medical area, and the Warren Anatomical Museum. The library is located approximately one block from Boston Children’s Hospital.