FAQ

At UH Rainbow Babies & Children's, we pride ourselves on helping new physicians advocate for the medically underserved, pursue diverse interests that enhance their careers, and become strong, autonomous clinicians in a supportive community. Our state-of-the-art outpatient medical home and resident continuity clinic have innovative partnerships with medical-legal, social work, nutrition, and dental teams to provide comprehensive care to the underserved population in Cleveland. Our academic tracks - Advocacy, Research, Medical Education, and the nation’s oldest Global Health track - allow our residents to go above and beyond their clinical training under the mentorship of supportive, engaged faculty.

On the clinical side, we’re extremely proud of our “Junior Silver” rotation, a general pediatrics team run exclusively by second year residents. With no senior resident, PGY-2s are able to interface directly with an attending to foster clinical decision-making and autonomy. Lastly, we break up the year with multiple opportunities for retreats and social events that allow us to develop a community even outside the hospital.

We offer 27 categorical pediatric positions each year.

Our residents come from all over the country and Canada. For more information, visit our resident section.

As an academic tertiary care center, we’re fortunate that we have a strong presence of subspecialized and general practitioners. With their mentorship and our residents’ exposure to the full breadth of pediatric medicine, our residents go on to pursue fellowship training, primary care, and hospital careers. View a list of our recent grads’ career choices.

Our continuity clinic is located in the newly built state-of-the-art UH Rainbow Center for Women & Children in Midtown Cleveland, located approximately 10 minutes from the hospital and accessible by car and by public transportation. This is an exciting initiative on the part of the hospital to make vital primary care services more accessible to our underserved patients, including dentistry, optometry, nutrition, social work, and even a medical-legal partnership. As part of our X+Y system, residents have continuity clinics over a two-week period occurring every eight weeks throughout the academic year.

The inpatient ward teams utilize a day team/night team system, and sign out between the respective teams occurs at the same time each morning and evening. A recent innovation in our program was to diversify the Night Team intern duties: on some nights the intern will care for already admitted patients, while on others nights the intern’s designated role is to admit new patients to a variety of teams with close support from their senior residents. Our NICU also operates exclusively on a day/night system, though interns are not scheduled for any night shifts.

Our PICU and Junior Silver teams operate on a 24-hour call schedule, with residents performing a 24-hour call every fifth or sixth night.

Scheduled days off vary based on the rotation. Every resident is guaranteed four days off in a four-week period per Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requirements. We work hard to accommodate individual schedule requests and preferences.

Each resident has four weeks of vacation divided into one- and two-week blocks.  Vacation requests are taken before the start of each academic year and most requests are fulfilled, especially for significant life events. Additionally, all graduating interns have a fifth week of vacation in the last week of June, before they start their junior year. During this additional week of vacation, many intern classes take a vacation together to various tropical destinations (with recent trips including Florida, Dominican Republic, and Cancun!).

Yes. All residents complete a scholarly activity as part of their residency. Our residents regularly present their work at regional and national meetings. At our institution, there are a multitude of resources for research and great enthusiasm on the part of the faculty for providing residents with meaningful research projects and support. Elective time may be dedicated to pursuing research interests as well, and the research is tailored to the resident's interests. Our recent graduates have written chapters for major oncology publications, developed novel curricula on physical diagnosis and meaning in medicine, and performed clinical research in gastroenterology, among many projects in quality improvement and advocacy.

Quality improvement (QI) and patient safety are both heavily emphasized at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital. Residents receive QI education longitudinally and learn the basic principles of the model for improvement and how to design a QI project during the first two years of residency so as to prepare them to complete a QI project by the end of their residency. This project may also serve as a scholarly activity. Additional rotations or electives in QI and safety are encouraged for interested residents!

We believe that child advocacy is integral to being a pediatric physician. Advocacy is incorporated into the regular resident curriculum, and all residents participate in additional educational activities centered around advocacy, which can include participation in the following:

• Longitudinal projects
• Community organizations
• Lobbying the state house
• Teaching opportunities

We offer an additional longitudinal advocacy track in which residents may participate.

The Pediatrics department has a multitude of global health opportunities, and we’re proud to say that we have the oldest global health track in the country. We fully support the use of elective time to participate in global health programs. Funding for clinical electives abroad can be obtained by participating in the Global Child Health program. Our recent grads have done clinical rotations in Thailand, Laos, Haiti, Uganda and India, among others. We have also worked on research projects and public health interventions treating and preventing rheumatic heart disease in Uganda, where University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University have been heavily involved for several decades.

Many of our residents live in University Circle or in the Cleveland Heights, University Heights and Shaker Heights neighborhoods, which are about a 10-minute drive from the hospital and have many great restaurants and bars. Others prefer to live downtown, about a 15- to 20-minute drive. There are also options to live on the west side of the city, which have fun, vibrant neighborhoods and are a little further away from the hospital. Learn more at our Life in Cleveland section.

Honestly, Cleveland has it all:

Sports:

• Baseball:  Guardians games in the fall
• Football:  Browns games through the winter
• Basketball:  the Cleveland Cavaliers

Arts and Music:

• Free, internationally renowned Cleveland Museum of Art (with monthly after-hours socials!)
• Birthplace of Rock ‘n’ Roll, with the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame downtown
• Blossom Music Center:  massive outdoor music venue that hosts everyone from the Cleveland Orchestra, Tenacious D, the Black Keys, and Matchbox Twenty

Food and Drink:

• Dozens of breweries and microbreweries throughout the city
• Ice cream at Mitchell’s and Mason’s (the latter of which transforms into a ramen shop in the winter)
• Little Italy hosts an annual street fair - the Feast of the Assumption - well known for its delicious food.  Pick a side in the rivalry between Corbo’s and Presti’s bakeries!

The Great Outdoors:

• Cuyahoga Valley National Park offers miles of hiking and biking
• Cleveland’s MetroParks are entwined throughout the city, offering green spaces no matter where you go
• Water sports, paddleboarding, or just relaxing on the shores of Lake Erie are summertime favorites.