Clinical: Our competitive fellowship offers a balance between development (autism, intellectual disability, developmental delays), and behavior (anxiety, toileting, stress reduction techniques) and ADHD. Program is based in a collaborative division of developmental-behavioral pediatricians, pediatric psychologists, and neuropsychologists. This combination enables clinical, educational, and research collaboration. The Division’s Rainbow Child Development Center focuses on the 3 As: ADHD, anxiety, and Autism Spectrum Disorders. Considerable time is also spent in a Sleep Disorder Clinic, NICU Follow-up Clinic, and International Adoption Clinic.
The DPB fellowship offers rich and varied clinical experiences. The DBP fellows have a weekly DBP continuity clinic and spend time in other DBP clinics as well as Down syndrome Clinic. They also rotate in interdisciplinary clinics for children with autism, fetal alcohol spectrum, craniofacial disorders, and meningomyelocoel. A month long rotation at the Cleveland Clinic includes experiences in their feeding clinic, cerebral palsy clinic, autism clinic, autism school and in-patient pain program. As knowledge of resources is an important part of training, fellows visit schools and sites that provide resources as well as attend conferences to learn about resources. The third year has flexibility for electing to spend time in clinics which will prepare the fellow for their anticipated career placement.
Inpatient: Inpatient consultations are seen at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital. They include mainly developmental-behavioral evaluations. One of the DBP fellows’ rotations is with our psychologist who consults on inpatients with acute or chronic illnesses that have a stress related aspect to their illness that is interfering with healing (e.g. conversion reaction).
Teaching: There is an emphasis on the development of teaching skills through the expectation and opportunity to teach in the weekly Fellows’ Seminar and pediatric residents in their month-long rotation.. The weekly Fellows’ Seminar is used as a forum to evaluate and learn from the teaching of others, practice presentations to be given at the annual MCH meeting and other forums, present on topics of interest, and receive feedback. The fellows are also active in teaching pediatric residents when they rotate in DBP and in their continuity clinics. In addition, Case Western Reserve University has an ongoing series of seminars on the development of teaching skills attended by the fellows.
Research: Divisional and institutional supports mentor the fellows thought the pursuit of a research project. The research project is developed in year one with major blocks of time in year two for executing the project and writing it up. Year three research time is for completing research activities. Within the division and the institution, there are multiple individuals who provide mentoring for research projects.
Advocacy: The Rainbow Center for Public Policy offers opportunities and mentoring in important public policy initiatives.
After completion of our 3 year fellowship, graduates are eligible for the Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics subspecialty boards.
Length: 3 years
Number of Fellows accepted each year: 1-2
Citizenship Requirement: United States citizens or those with permanent residency status in the United States