The inpatient wards at the Mattel Children's Hospital house a number of children with illnesses ranging from asthma exacerbations to complex congenital heart disease and a variety of other subspecialty issues. Pediatric and Med-Peds residents at UCLA learn to diagnose and manage these common and rarer pediatric illnesses, in conjunction with fellows and attendings. The patient population at the Mattel Children's Hospital comes from not only the Los Angeles and Southern California areas but also from around the world.

Pediatric and Med-Peds residents learn to care for common newborn issues in the newborn nursery, both at the Mattel Children's Hospital and at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. With the back up of Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) at the Mattel Children's Hospital and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, residents learn to identify potential newborn problems, start therapeutic management, and triage babies to the appropriate care setting. The newborn nurseries are managed by attending physicians in general pediatrics and in the NICU.

The intensive care units in pediatrics are traditionally the most demanding rotations during residency training, but can also be fulfilling in the interactions with patients and families. During these stressful times for families, pediatric and Med-Peds residents are the contact persons to provide information and support. In the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), residents learn about the unfortunate consequences of unintentional (trauma) injuries to children and how to manage serious medical problems such as oncologic diseases or organ failure. In the NICU, residents learn about peri-natal issues and management of premature newborns, as well as newborns with congenital issues.

The ambulatory clinics are the hallmark of general pediatrics and a sampling of what pediatrics is like in the community. The ambulatory clinics at the Children's Health Center at UCLA, Olive View Medical Center, and the Venice Family Clinic/Burke Health Center are all set-up so that residents see a mixture of continuity and urgent care patients in the same clinic session, much as a community pediatrician would see in the office. In all of these three settings, we care for the underserved children of Los Angeles county, mostly uninsured or insured by Medicaid or Healthy Families, our Title XXI program. The ambulatory pediatric experiences are rich not only in the common outpatient medical problems seen, but also the cultural diversity of families and issues pertaining to these populations.

Child development is unique to pediatrics and the basis for understanding how children cope with illness. It is also important for understanding the ways that pediatricians can help families promote their children's health and education to insure future school success and well-being. The child development rotation consists for 4 weeks, during which time residents rotate through a number of community settings (child care centers, family day care, schools, Head Start programs) in which they are able to observe children between 0 and 12 years in their "natural environments." In addition, residents also participate in specialized development clinics such as ADHD clinic and Educational Advocacy clinic (a multi-disciplinary clinic with law students and psychology interns for children with school problems).

Adolescent medicine works with a distinct and important population of youths that by definition are underserved because of their infrequency of visits to health care professionals. Med-Peds physicians are uniquely positioned to understand adolescents from a developmental perspective (which their pediatric training gives them) and from the perspective of where adolescents are heading (which their medicine training gives them). The UCLA Adolescent Medicine rotation is comprised of clinical experiences geared towards getting to where the adolescents are. Most of the rotation is spent rotating through school-based health clinics which are located on school campuses and the Venice Teen Clinic, in which adolescents can come for care without their parents. The Teen Clinic is located near Venice High School, one of the largest high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.