Child Abuse Pediatrics Fellowship

 

The University of Colorado School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Colorado, and the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect,all located on the Anschutz Medical Campus, offer a three-year post-residency fellowship in Child Abuse Pediatrics. The primary goal of our fellowship program is to train physicians who are board eligible or board certified in pediatrics to become academic and clinical leaders in the subspecialty field of Child Abuse Pediatrics The fellowship provides in-depth and intensive training clinical care, education and research. More ABP information can be found at www.abp.org. In addition, the Kempe Center offers the Berger Fellowship, a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship.

About Kempe

The Kempe Center was founded in 1972 by C. Henry Kempe, MD, a former University of Colorado School of Medicine Chairman of Pediatrics. His 1962 publication of the landmark paper The Battered Child, establishing one of the nation's first Child Protection Teams in 1958 and founding of the national center in Denver, are both legacy and foundation for the current University of Colorado School of Medicine child advocacy and protection system of care.

The faculty at The Kempe Center consists of pediatricians, social workers, lawyer, epidemiologists, child welfare services researchers and psychology and psychiatry clinicians. Our strength-based, family centered, and competency-based training program for child welfare professionals has educational experts in adult learning.  Children’s Hospital Colorado clinical staff have many faculty colleagues in the Departments of General Pediatrics, Critical Care, Emergency Medicine, Neurosurgery, Social Work and Surgery who provide excellent interdisciplinary care with our team for suspected child abuse victims and their families. For more information about the center, please visit www.thekempecenter.org.

Past trainees continue very active involvement in the field of child abuse pediatrics and have become nationally recognized for their work with abused children as academic faculty, clinicians, and educators.

Program Aims

  • The Child Abuse Pediatrics Fellowship will train pediatricians to become clinical, academic, educational and administrative leaders in the field of Child Abuse Pediatrics. The fellowship has the core goal to promote the health, safety and well-being of all children by assuring that there are well trained subspecialists the field of Child Abuse Pediatrics.
  • Fellows will learn to provide patient care to children and adolescents with suspected abuse in a family-centered, culturally-sensitive, developmentally-focused manner and within a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) that is broadly inclusive and evidence-based. The MDT model for the diagnosis and treatment of child abuse is emphasized. Successful completion of training depends on the demonstrated ability to utilize and coordinate care within health care and child welfare systems in order to provide optimal care and advocacy for patients, families and communities
  • The program also trains fellows to grow as experts in the education of multidisciplinary professionals, as well as graduate medical education learners in our school and hospitals. Fellows who successfully complete training will have developed a teaching portfolio that addresses the scope of education in our field and advocacy for the issue of child maltreatment. The program provides basic research skills needed for completion of core scholarship requirement and graduate fellows who will advance the evidence base of the field.
  • To build and maintain an infrastructure to recruit diverse fellows and provide an inclusive learning environment that promotes and celebrates differences.

Clinical Training

Clinical training during the fellowship includes extensive experience with the Child Protection Team, a shared multidisciplinary program of Children's Hospital Colorado and The Kempe Center. The team is the only hospital based multidisciplinary child abuse team in the state. The team evaluates and provides treatment annually for children who are suspected child abuse victims. Physicians, healthcare professionals, families, human services, law enforcement, and others in the Rocky Mountain Region refer to the team for consultation, treatment services, and support. Children's Hospital Colorado is the only Level One Pediatric Trauma Center in Colorado with very active Emergency Medicine, Trauma, General Surgery and Neurosurgery, and Burn Unit services.

Fellows participate in the medical diagnosis, consultation, and treatment of children who are admitted to Children's Hospital Colorado for serious injuries resulting from suspected physical abuse or neglect and sexual assault. The team also consults on factitious illness, nonorganic failure to thrive, neglect, child deaths, and sexual abuse cases. A weekly clinic evaluates cases of child abuse in an interdisciplinary team approach. Fellows learn how to obtain a detailed child abuse history, how to recognize and diagnose abusive injuries, how to analyze the mechanics of inflicted injury, how to interview families and children in the hospital setting, how to use diagnostic tests, and how to document abuse. Fellows will attend and participate in forensic autopsies of children who die from child abuse or other injuries and can participate in local child fatality review teams.

Clinical call is shared with attending faculty who are based at Children’s Hospital Colorado and our teaching affiliate Denver Health Medical Center. Rotations at the Denver County SAFE Center and local child advocacy centers are part of training.

Fellows will interact with the staff psychologist of the Stress, Trauma, Adversity Research, and Treatment (START) Center, a behavioral health clinic for exposure to the mental health outcomes of child abuse and neglect. Fellows can also interact with and participate in the other programs of the Kempe Center.

Integral to medical evaluation is learning how to work with social service and law enforcement agencies to protect children at risk for abuse, death, or serious disability from abuse and neglect. Fellows learn about the legal systems involved in child protection and child abuse prosecution through didactic lectures, weekly child protection team interdisciplinary review, and direct court experience. The fellows learn state child abuse laws, how to be an effective witness, and how to document and present cases for the legal system. Court testimony by fellows is an expected part of training.

Diversity / Equity / Inclusion

Diversity

The Department of Pediatrics believes that an environment of inclusiveness and respect promotes excellence, and that a setting where diversity is valued leads to the training of physicians who are prepared to practice culturally effective medicine and meet the needs of the various populations we serve.

Visit our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion page to learn more...

 

 

Well-Being / Resilience

Be well

By embracing wellness and improving personal resiliency, physicians can reconnect with the meaning of their work and fend off stress. Reducing or eliminating burnout also has practical implications for the entire department such as improving patient safety, student advancement, and the overall campus environment. 

Visit our Pediatric Well-Being and Resilience website...