Education & Training
Physicians come from all over the world to participate in our Pediatric Nephrology Fellowship Training Program. The Division of Nephrology at CHAM and Albert Einstein College of Medicine maintain the largest nephrology fellowship program in New York, with six to seven fellows who are active in patient care, education and research.
The program consists of one year of intensive clinical experience and two years of basic, translational, or clinical research training.
During the first year, trainees focus on patient care, under direct supervision from the Pediatric Nephrology faculty. First-year fellows gain experience caring for patients from birth through young adulthood and managing renal disorders as diverse as electrolyte imbalance, hypertension, acute and chronic renal failure, congenital and acquired abnormalities of the renal-genitourinary tract, glomerulonephritis, nephrotic syndrome, systemic diseases with renal involvement, and kidney transplant recipients.
During the second and third years, fellows still have clinical responsibilities, but shift their focus to scholarly activities, research, and teaching.
Conferences and Activities
A variety of opportunities exist for fellows to attend conferences and extracurricular activities, including the Miami Seminars in Pediatric Nephrology in the first year, the RRI Dialysis Conference in the second year, and the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) in third year.
Trainees at any level are encouraged to submit abstracts to major scientific meetings (ASN, Pediatric Academic Societies), if their supervising faculty feels it's appropriate. If their abstracts are accepted, fellows can attend these meetings as well.
During the second and third years, fellows can spend a week in the Catskills, at the Frost Valley YMCA, where CHAM has a satellite children's dialysis unit. This one-of-a-kind program started in 1975 and gives kids with chronic kidney failure, or who have had transplants, the chance to attend summer camp with other children. This unique experience gives fellows a chance to appreciate the challenges their patients face outside of a hospital setting.
Graduation
Over the course of the program, fellows study to become competent in six areas, in accordance with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) General Competencies:
- Patient care
- Medical knowledge
- Practice-based learning and improvement
- Interpersonal and communication skills
- Professionalism
- System-based practice
Upon completion, trainees will have gained the clinical and scientific experience necessary to embark on a career in academic pediatric nephrology.
Over the last forty years, more than 100 program graduates have continued their careers in academic medicine and provided significant contributions to the field of pediatric nephrology.