The following electives are established through the pediatric medical and surgical subspecialty faculty at the University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville and Nemours Children’s Health, Jacksonville.

These electives offer a unique opportunity for exposure to patients in a variety of inpatient and outpatient settings:

• Allergy/immunology
• Ambulatory pediatrics
• Anesthesia/procedural skills (WCH/UF)
• Bioethics
• Cardiology
• Care of the medically complex child
• Child Protection Team
• Dedicated clinic months in both the PGY-2/3 years
• Child and adolescent psychiatry
• Development/behavior evaluation clinic
• Endocrinology
• Gastroenterology and nutrition
• Hematology/oncology
• Infectious disease
• Jacksonville Health and Transition Services clinic (JaxHATS)
• Medical genetics
• Mental health (elective for PGY2 residents, required for PGY3 residents)
• Microbiology
• Narrative medicine
• Nephrology
• Neurology
• NICU (WCH)
• Ophthalmology
• Orthopedic surgery
• Orthopedics non-operative/Sports medicine
• Otolaryngology/head and neck surgery
• Palliative care
• Patient safety
• Pediatric emergency medicine (WCH)
• Practice Management Basics (for primary care)
• Physical medicine and rehabilitation (physiatry)
• Pulmonology
• Radiology
• Research/Research Skills (the latter is lab based)
• Rheumatology
• Rural medicine (Billings Clinic, Montana)
• Surgery
• Toxicology

Global Health Options

We started our first program sponsored international elective in the fall of 2017. This elective was in collaboration with Universidad El Bosque, Bogotá, Colombia and made possible through the generosity of the Bruno family and the Scott Bruno fund.

This led to the creation of our global health track, which is now in its fifth year. This is a 3-year longitudinal experience composed of structured didactics as well as experiential and self-directed learning opportunities. Residents on this track will have the opportunity to do local global electives in the PGY-2 year as well as international electives in the PGY-3 year in Bogota, Colombia or Beijing, China. These opportunities ae available for residents on the GH track only.

We recently also signed agreements with Sister Parish Ministry, who have been proving services to underprivileged children in the Dominican Republic for many years. This latter opportunity is directly supervised by one of our UF faculty members who has been going to the DR for almost twenty years and may be available for residents on a case by case basis, a couple of times a year. In addition, our university has also developed an opportunity for an international health experience in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, and we are thrilled that one of our residents on the GH track was accepted as part of this pilot to go. We hope to be able to send more residents in the future!

Our Wellness Program

There has been increasing recognition of physician burnout by the ACGME and the important of wellness and development of resilience among physicians. Our program has developed multiple wellness initiatives aimed at ensuring we are helping our residents cope with and prevent burnout early in their training. Our approach to wellness is holistic and we believe that wellness should be incorporated into our daily lives as a routine. We offer monthly wellness sessions where residents discuss different aspects of physician burnout such as dealing with stressful times, end of life events, building resilience during residency and coping with other stressors (such as financial concerns). These discussions are often facilitated by dedicated faculty. They may also use this time for other wellness activities such as a nature walk on our grounds.

Class retreats and team building activities, Halloween pumpkin carving contest, holiday party, birthday recognition, participation in community events are also part of our wellness initiatives. We have a big-brother/big-sister mentor program to help incoming interns settle into residency with ample guidance and as little stress as possible. In addition, the program organizes and supports multiple social and cultural events throughout the year. We also give residents an extra day off in lieu of their birthday either during that same day/month or whenever possible.