Pediatric Residency Program
Welcome!
UVA Pediatrics Residency
Hello. I would like to take a moment to welcome you to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. My name is Lisa Hantock, and I'm the program director for the pediatric [music]
0:1212 secondsresidency program. Charlottesville is an incredible place to live and work. And you will quickly find that the University of Virginia provides a very
0:1919 secondswide catchment area that enables our residents to be exposed to everything from [music] preventive medicine and primary care all the way to children
0:2828 secondswith incredible medical complexity and everything in between. When our residents complete their training here, they feel fully prepared to continue on
0:3636 seconds the next step in their careers, whether it be in private practice, academic medicine, fellowship, or research. We
0:4444 secondshope to show you more today about what truly makes this program so special.
0:4747 seconds[music]
0:4949 secondsHi, welcome to UVA. My name is Alexander Deleon. I'm one of the associate program directors and we're thrilled that you decided to check out our program. I
0:5656 secondsthink that UVA has the perfect combination of [music] excellent training, wonderful people, and extraordinary mentorship that's [music]
1:041 minute, 4 secondsgoing to take you wherever you need to go in your career as a general pediatrician. Our residents are collegial driven and just a really great
1:131 minute, 13 secondsgroup of people. So, we're so proud to show you what our program is made of.
1:181 minute, 18 secondsHere at UVA, we really try to strike the [music] right balance between didactic time and in-person clinical education.
1:251 minute, 25 secondsBut our faculty love to teach and we're always trying to incorporate [music] education in other ways on rounds for example in clinic between patients and
1:331 minute, 33 seconds[music] we really try to encourage residents to have autonomy with their own patients which I think [music]
1:371 minute, 37 secondsencourages the development of that clinical judgment as well. The learning environment at UVA pediatrics is made up of multiple components. We have structured [music] dactics. Every
1:461 minute, 46 secondsmorning we have morning report where all the residents who are on site and [music] a bunch of faculty who are on call and covering come together. We discuss interesting admissions from the
1:541 minute, 54 secondsnight before. We get to then get the input from all these subsp specialists who may not have actually been involved in the patient's care but could contribute something [music] in terms of
2:032 minutes, 3 secondshow to care for certain patients. Noon conference, it's an hour every day where all the residents come together and we get to hear 45minute long lecture from
2:112 minutes, 11 secondsone of the faculty members on a topic of their choosing but [music] usually within their subsp specialty. The idea is that we get two times daily [music] structured protected time for didactics.
2:212 minutes, 21 secondsOne of my favorite things about our dactics is um Wednesday schools. About once a month, we are able [music] to get together as residents and learn
2:302 minutes, 30 secondsdifferent hands-on skills. Things like intubations and suturing. We get to practice with [music] their hands. So, we're ready for when that happens in
2:382 minutes, 38 secondsreal clinical time. I feel respected as an adult learner. [music] So despite these structured learning activities,
2:462 minutes, 46 secondsthere's also trust that I am kind of the master of my own destiny and my own learning for the type of career and profession that I want to pursue.
2:562 minutes, 56 secondsWe are a midsize program at UVA and the benefit of that is that you get a lot of autonomy [music] as a resident. We want our residents to take ownership of their
3:053 minutes, 5 secondspatients and to take them on as their own. We have a model of a hospital within a hospital. So, our children's hospital is embedded inside a larger
3:143 minutes, 14 secondshospital that is oriented towards adults, but when you walk off the elevator or the stairs onto one of our
3:213 minutes, 21 secondspediatric floors, you know immediately that you're in an environment where we're taking care of children and their families. [music] We're situated in a part of the country where we get to draw
3:293 minutes, 29 secondsfrom more rural communities. So, not only are we seeing these more rare tertiary situations, but we're also getting to go out into the rural area
3:383 minutes, 38 secondsand really just be primary care for underserved regions. So, we have patients that come in here and they establish with our sub specialties and
3:453 minutes, 45 secondsthey stay with us. So, I get to see all of these patients in my primary care clinic and I get to [music] follow them along throughout their life. So, I
3:523 minutes, 52 secondsactually have a handful of patients that I got to be there when they were born and take care of them in the nursery and I still see them for their follow-up
4:004 minuteswellchild visits. There's also a [music] lot of great support in the clinic as well. Like our social work is right around the corner. We have a food pantry
4:074 minutes, 7 secondsin the building. So, there's a lot [music] of great resources that prioritize patients and their families, which is rare in a lot of programs.
4:144 minutes, 14 secondsI felt [music] incredibly prepared going into fellowship as a resident. I got the clinical skills, how to communicate with families, how to navigate the academic
4:234 minutes, 23 secondshospital center, and also the faculty support and connections to know that I had people I could lean on and ask for help. So, even talking to my friends who [music] have gone out into the world,
4:314 minutes, 31 secondsthey say the same thing that they learned not just what they needed for their field they went into, but also the whole spectrum of pediatric care so they could support their patients the best.
4:434 minutes, 43 secondsfaculty are very willing and proactive about reaching out to residents with projects that they may have. And [music] because our faculty know us pretty well,
4:504 minutes, 50 secondsI think that it lends itself to these research opportunities. In residency, [music] I had a halfozen mentors in different parts of my life, whether it
4:584 minutes, 58 secondswas someone who could help me with advocacy, a GI mentor, everyone's so excited to help you grow and find you the right opportunity.
5:065 minutes, 6 secondsQI basically stands for quality improvement. A big part of residency training is learning how to improve
5:135 minutes, 13 secondsthings for our patients. Learning how to improve their outcomes, [music] learning how to improve the care they're getting while they're in the hospital or while
5:215 minutes, 21 secondsthey're in the clinics. And a lot of our opportunities at UVA for QI have been resident and suggested.
5:285 minutes, 28 secondsThe residents are really uniquely positioned to [music] make changes for our patients. you all are working in different systems and different teams all the time and you're there at the
5:375 minutes, 37 secondsbedside in the clinics with patients doing the work and so having these opportunities to notice areas that could be improved and to make changes is
5:455 minutes, 45 secondsreally very unique and special for residents and I'm so glad to get to work with you all doing that.
5:515 minutes, 51 secondsOne thing that I have appreciated about UVA since coming [music] here is the commitment of the department of pediatrics to really serving the needs
5:585 minutes, 58 secondsof our community. Charlottesville serves as one of the resettlement sites for people seeking asylum within the United States. [music] Not every patient is the
6:066 minutes, 6 secondssame, and you have to understand not just the differences in what needs they have, but also what's happening at [music] home and how you can work with them, their communities, their cultures
6:146 minutes, 14 secondsto have the best care for them. Nothing we do as a pediatrician has any impact if [music] we don't impact what's going on outside of the clinic walls. The home
6:236 minutes, 23 secondsvisit program is something that we do kind of out of our resident general pediatrics [music] clinic. couple residents every year, senior residents, like second and third year residents plan the home visits.
6:326 minutes, 32 secondsIt's a really cool opportunity to have patients trust us enough to welcome us into their home and into their like personal spaces. Seeing their these
6:406 minutes, 40 secondsfamilies and these children's and the comfort of their own home help me to understand how different social determinants of health interact to each
6:476 minutes, 47 secondsother. What stood out about UVA [music] were the multiple different tracks that you can take with your career. whether
6:556 minutes, 55 secondsyou're interested [music] in primary care, whether you're interested in a subsp specialty, having those connections and mentors um close by
7:047 minutes, 4 seconds[music] was something that I was really interested in a program.
7:097 minutes, 9 secondsTeaching is core to what we do. Anyone [music] who's interested in education might be interested in the track. It's a way to learn sort of the basics about
7:177 minutes, 17 secondsadult education, but also it's going to refine [music] your techniques as an educator. Being part of the clinical educator track, we're given a lot of
7:257 minutes, 25 secondsgreat [music] didactics and tools with how to approach really like extemporaneous in [music] the- moment teaching, bedside teaching if you will,
7:327 minutes, 32 secondswith the medical students or uh junior residents [music] like the interns. We have a lot of great mentors through the track as well, who both sort of teach by
7:407 minutes, 40 secondsdoing in [music] terms of demonstrating how we can fit all these learning opportunities throughout our day and weeks while also being available if we
7:487 minutes, 48 secondshave questions on how to approach teaching a certain topic. and they often [music] times have tips on how they would approach that themselves.
7:557 minutes, 55 secondsUVA's global health track is unique because we have both protected time within the classroom working alongside [music] residents from other specialties
8:048 minutes, 4 secondswhether it's psychiatry, family med, surgery, all of the above. Learning about global health as well as different diseases as well as learning about
8:128 minutes, 12 secondssocial determinance of health from a global perspective. Additionally, we've protected [music] time as well depending on your schedule or interest to potentially travel abroad. And so you
8:218 minutes, 21 secondsget to learn about so many different things from both hands-on experiences as well as kind of in more formal [music] settings and informal but at times
8:288 minutes, 28 secondsmonthly as well with journal clubs and things like that. I had the opportunity during my second year to travel abroad to a community hospital in Kenya. I got
8:368 minutes, 36 seconds[music] to work in their pediatric ICU, their intermediate units as well as their general wards.
8:438 minutes, 43 secondsWe started the primary care track [music] about 5 years ago because residents who were graduating from our program felt like even though they'd had a lot of experiences in outpatient
8:528 minutes, 52 secondspediatrics, they weren't really prepared for going into primary care learning how to do the business of it and how [music] to do some of the mental health things
9:009 minutesand how to interact with the staff and how to negotiate contracts. So, our hope is that by the end of residency, if
9:079 minutes, 7 secondsyou've done the primary care track, you're ready for all of those things. I would really recommend the primary gear track to everyone. No matter what specialty you go into, there's a lot of
9:159 minutes, 15 secondsreally valuable things that you can learn from it on just how to be a good general pediatrician that [music] you'll not only use the rest of residency, but in your career afterwards, cuz we're the
9:249 minutes, 24 secondsfront lines a lot of times for these [music] families. I think the primary care track has been a really great opportunity to learn specifically about
9:329 minutes, 32 secondsquestions [music] related to how to handle things in the outpatient setting.
9:359 minutes, 35 secondsAnd so, we really get to talk as a group about what we'd like to learn. [music] And then our mentors bring in subsp specialists to then tell us what they think that general pediatricians should
9:449 minutes, 44 secondsknow. We also have primary care physicians from around UVA who are part of the primary care track who come to lectures who interact with the residents
9:529 minutes, 52 secondsin the [music] track and do extra work with them to help review CVS and help connect people with other pediatricians in the local and broader communities to
10:0010 minutes[music] ultimately find jobs and just be ready in every way for their primary careers.
10:0610 minutes, 6 secondsOne of the things that I really love about our program is that we have an entire committee, the wellness committee that is devoted to making sure that our residents are having fun both in the
10:1410 minutes, 14 secondshospital and outside [music] of the hospital. It can get really tough when we take care of patients every day and um we see [music] kids that are acutely
10:2210 minutes, 22 secondsill. I think the wellness committee is really important in prioritizing that [music] our mental wellness and health
10:2910 minutes, 29 secondsis very important for us to take care of our patients. And so [music] if we as a program are bonding and know each other
10:3810 minutes, 38 secondsoutside [music] of work, it makes working together that much more fun.
10:4210 minutes, 42 secondsHonestly, just improving [music] like the team player mentality, which is such a important factor here at UVA that I really prioritize.
10:5210 minutes, 52 secondsWhen you're choosing a residency program, [music] it's really thinking about what your day-to-day is going to be like. And for me, my day-to-day would be surrounded by
11:0111 minutes, 1 secondreally, really supportive faculty that I feel like I [music] can call or text any time of the day whenever I have any questions. But they [music] also really
11:1011 minutes, 10 secondspush me to make my own decisions as a healthcare provider and physician and pediatrician. So, I feel like it's a
11:1711 minutes, 17 secondsreally [music] good balance of being able to have my own autonomy over patients, but also being able to feel
11:2511 minutes, 25 seconds[music] that support. faculty here has been dedicated to getting to know us deeper. Whether that is time spent uh
11:3311 minutes, 33 secondsgetting coffee, just talking about their career paths, or time just spent in the resident workroom talking informally
11:4011 minutes, 40 secondsabout our lives or interesting patient cases. Those [music] interactions have been the most important part of them
11:4711 minutes, 47 secondsguiding me towards a specific careers that I might be interested in and how I would go about doing that in the [music] future. I would say Charlottesville
11:5611 minutes, 56 secondsoverall is a very almost like idealic community where
11:5911 minutes, 59 seconds[music]
12:0012 minutesum you can live in an area where it's, you know, walkable to [music] various bars or restaurants or cafes. There's
12:0712 minutes, 7 secondslots of parks available around here. And I think that allows people to connect with their community more. [music] There's a ton of good mountains. There's
12:1512 minutes, 15 secondsnice wineries, breweries, hiking, there's rivers. There's really everything you could want to do in Charlottesville. Every Friday afternoon,
12:2312 minutes, 23 secondswe all go to Friday night trivia at a bar right across from the hospital.
12:2712 minutes, 27 secondsSometimes it'll be a few people depending how busy it is. Sometimes we'll have 20 people there. And it's just a really great time for everyone to get together and [music] enjoy some time at the end of the week.
12:3612 minutes, 36 secondsThere's people, they're running, they're walking, they're eating, they're engaging in community. It's an outside town like no other that I'd quite experienced before. And we enjoy being
12:4412 minutes, 44 secondspart of that. To me, [music] Charlottesville is home.
12:5012 minutes, 50 secondsThe department of pediatrics [music] is a very special and unique place because of the respect, the camaraderie
12:5712 minutes, 57 secondsand the collegiality that is evident across the faculty, the fellows, the students, the residents [music] and the staff. This is a group of people that
13:0613 minutes, 6 secondstruly believes in the four mission areas of [music] clinical care, education, research and community. Our department has wonderful educators and clinicians
13:1513 minutes, 15 seconds[music]
13:1513 minutes, 15 secondsuh with uh tremendous uh expertise in managing not just our wellchild visits but some extremely complex clinical
13:2313 minutes, 23 secondssituations and everything that comes in between. [music] Another unique feature of UVA pediatrics is a tremendous sense of community that is inherent [music] to
13:3013 minutes, 30 secondsthis department. People really like each other. They care for each other and they will do all they can to support [music] each other. There's a tremendous bond
13:3913 minutes, 39 secondsbetween our residents and our faculty that is very heartening and gratifying for the chair of pediatrics. [music] So congratulations on your choice to
13:4613 minutes, 46 secondsbecome a pediatrician. This is a wonderful profession and as you embark on this journey, I wish you the very best.
Social Health Sciences and Programs
UVA Health Children’s is proud to serve the Charlottesville community, providing care to individuals and families from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences.
We are aligned with the broader mission of our university to foster excellence in education, clinical care, and local partnership building. Our residency program welcomes applicants with varied interests and perspectives, and we value the contributions each resident brings to our team, our healthcare system, and the community we serve.
Our residents are trained to recognize and address health disparities as a core component of delivering high-quality pediatric care. This commitment is reflected in patient interactions, community involvement, and educational presentations. For example, Dr. Krista Roncone, class of 2024, led a morning report exploring how different factors can influence patient care.
Residents are encouraged to tailor their learning experiences to focus on specific populations or topics of interest. They have the opportunity to share their insights during two dedicated noon conferences. Additionally, our year-round didactic sessions include discussions on healthcare challenges faced by various patient groups, often featuring guest speakers who provide firsthand perspectives.
4th Year Elective Scholarship Program
The University of Virginia and the Department of Pediatrics offer several opportunities for 4th-year medical students to visit our institution and complete an away elective.
A Great Place to Live & A Great Teaching Hospital
Area leaders are devoted to having the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County continue to be one of the Best Places to Live in America. Charlottesville is a place people love to call home.
Charlottesville has kept its small-town flavor while offering a wealth of big-city opportunities. Stroll the beautiful Downtown Mall and experience its wide choice of locally-owned restaurants and music venues; hike and ski the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains, or just enjoy the view while driving on the Skyline Drive.
UVA Health Children's has been named the No.1 Children's Hospital in Virginia for the third consecutive year by U.S. News and World Report, and the publication also ranked nine UVA Health Children's subspecialties among the top 50 nationally in their fields.
This is Charlottesville
Visit our Instagram page to see our residents at work, and at play.