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Department of Pediatrics

UI Health is UIC’s academic health enterprise
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MedPed Tracks

There are four track options for MedPed residents.

Leaders for Local Change: Addressing Health Disparities through Resident Empowerment Heading link

We have developed a track focused on community health and engagement. This is a longitudinal certificate program to study and gain a deeper understanding into existing health disparities and inequities in our community and to provide opportunities for trainees to enact effective and sustainable community change. Track directors are Michael Charles, MD (MedPeds) and Ana Mauro, MD (MedPeds)This track has four components.

Part 1

Monthly educational sessions led by content experts. 1-2 hours of preparation (e.g. reading articles and book chapters, watching documentaries…) is expected prior to each session. Educational sessions are open to residents not participating in the track. The curriculum will address a rotation of the following topics yearly:

  • Structural violence
  • Immigrant health
  • Disability justice
  • LGBTQ health
  • Opioid use disorder
  • Reproductive justice/Women’s health
  • Mental healthcare
  • Disaster healthcare

Part II

Complete medication-assisted therapy waiver training, asylum medical evaluation training, and bias reduction in internal medicine workshops. Participation in a legislative policy brief via the LEAD elective is highly encouraged.

Find your passion via community engagement (e.g. working with street medicine, student-rum clinics, Chicago Public Schools, prison health, fair housing initiatives, asylum health evaluations…)

Part III-IV

Finding a mentor and initiating and developing a sustainable community engagement initiative and presenting your project pitfalls, triumphs, and findings at MedPeds Grand Rounds.

Medical Education Track Heading link

The Medical Education Track is intended for residents interested in pursuing academic and MedEd careers. Upon track completion, participants will receive a certificate of completion. Track directors are Kelsie Avants, DO (MedPeds) and Jenna Schulte, MD (MedPeds)

Goals

  • Introduce MedEd theories and teaching strategies that are applicable to the unique position of residents-as-teachers
  • Improve teaching skills through observed teaching sessions and individualized feedback
  • Expand MedEd opportunities available to residents by providing protected time to develop teaching skills and to participate in mentored longitudinal MedEd projects
  • Provide individualized mentorship to residents who plan on incorporating MedEd as a component of their future careers

Eligibility and application

Application is due March 1st. Applications will be limited to:

  • 1st year residents in Peds or IM
  • 1st or 2nd year residents in MedPeds

Required rotation

There is a required minimum 2 weeks MedEd teaching elective (once during residency) which will coincide with weeklong “Transition to Residency” (TTR) program for medical students in Spring 2022. Residents are required to attend the mini lecture series.

There is also protected time to work on a longitudinal project, with an optional additional 2 weeks for the longitudinal project or to participate in TTR a second time.

Required scholarly activities

  • Attend monthly conference series (min 75% attendance)
  • Participate in yearly MedEd OSTE (Objective Structured Teaching Examination/Exercise)
  • Present on a MedEd topic of your choice (minimum once/year) during:
    • MedEd track conferences
    • Categorical morning/noon conferences
    • Intern Orientation
    • Rising Senior Meeting
  • Work with faculty mentor to complete longitudinal project in MedEd
    • Goal to submit abstract to regional/national conference, present scholarly work at research symposium, publishing an article on a MedEd blog or MedEd portal
  • Participate in at least 3 additional teaching opportunities throughout the course of residency, including but not limited to:
    • M2 Simulation sessions (tentatively winter, spring)
    • Peds Clerkship Simulation sessions (tentatively year-round)
    • Transition to Clerkship for rising M3s (tentatively April)
    • Clinical Intersections for M3s (tentatively July-December)
    • Newborn Workshop (tentatively March-June)
    • Introduction to Clinical Medicine
    • Mentor’s Program (teach med students how write/present case reports)
  • Semiannual individual progress meetings with track director

Global Health Track Heading link

The UIC Global Community Health Track is a unique opportunity for resident physicians to expand their perspective on disparity both locally and globally. Through the UIC Center for Global Health, residents can choose to apply to one of two graduate-training certificate programs designed to enhance residents’ global health competencies, foster mentorship, and provide formalized education.

Global Community Health Track Heading link

The UIC MedPeds Global Community Health Track is a unique opportunity for resident physicians to expand their perspective on disparity both locally and globally. Through the UIC Center for Global Health, residents can choose to apply to one of two graduate-training certificate programs designed to enhance residents’ global health competencies, foster mentorship, and provide formalized education.

Visit the Center for Global Health website for more info.

We believe in training our residents to use a collaborative effort and public health approach to participate in sustainable and evidence-based global health projects. Health disparities exist everywhere – from the corners of Chicago to the valleys of Africa. This longitudinal curriculum will push our residents to practice medicine from more of a public health and global perspective. Through collaboration with health professionals from other departments and fields, residents will develop skill sets enabling them to become patient advocates and health care proponents no matter where and in what setting they practice.

After our project in the Dominican Republic completed, the Med Peds Residency Global Health Track began to search for a new potential global health site. Through the UIC Center for Global Health, Peru was recommended as a potential site due to the following:

  • The need for improved access to healthcare in various regions in this country
  • We had a potential partnership in the area of Iquitos, Peru through work being done by the Peruvian American Medical Society: Selva in Action chapter

In April 2016, our UIC team traveled to Peru to perform our initial site visit. We finalized our partnerships in Iquitos, Peru in April of 2017. Our goal is to work alongside Selva in Action to improve health services through the implementation of the COPE quality improvement program. Recently we performed a needs assessment by interviewing more than 100 community members in order to identify local health priorities during our March 2018 trip. We identified malaria, clean water sources, diarrheal illnesses, and women’s health as important topics to the communities. In 2019 we gathered more information through quality improvement surveys of both community members and medical expedition staff. Women’s health continued to be an important topic identified, and our 2020 trip had plans on improving HPV vaccination rates in the area; however due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this project has currently been put on hold due to international travel restrictions.

UIC MedPeds, in collaboration with UIC Dept of Family Medicine, Dept of Medicine, Northwestern University, Peace Corps Dominican Republic, and Clinica de Familia La Romana, is involved in the Peace Care project in Guaymate, Dominican Republic.

Through recommendations of Peace Corps Dominican Republic, the municipal of Guaymate, located in eastern DR was chosen as the collaborative community. The site was chosen with the following considerations:

  • The municipal and its surrounding bateyes have a need for improved health care capacity
  • The local community desired a collaborative relationship
  • A Peace Corps Volunteer who has expressed interest in working with Peace Care is currently in place in Guaymate and is well-integrated within the community
  • Clinica de Familia in La Romana is a primary care clinic actively involved in Guaymate and the bateye communities, and its staff has experience working with U.S. academic centers and is well-versed in conducting research
  • Guaymate is a rural municipal with a population os 17,000. Over 40% of the population is from the 30+ bateyes – housing communities for sugar cane field workers – located around Guaymate

Timeline

A team from UIC traveled to Guaymate in March, 2013 to jumpstart the project and to formalize our partnerships. A Community Advisory Board was formed to assessment the health needs of the community. A second site visit was conducted in Sept, 2013. Focused group discussions were done in the community and the surrounding bateyes to learn of the health problems in the region. In March, 2014, we returned to Guaymate to train the hospital staff on doing quality improvement measures. Our project was completed in March 2015.