Curriculum

 We immerse our fellows in all things neonatology. Over three years of training, they develop the clinical knowledge, technical and interpersonal skills, and cultural competency necessary to care for families who are faced with a complex pregnancy and/or neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) stay. 

Clinical requirements during the three-year training are shown below:

*Follow-up Clinics are one day/week, spaced out over the course of a year.

NICU weeks are spent at our Level IV NICU and Level II Intermediate Care Nursery. Fellows gain competency in delivery room, emergency room, and NICU management. We have two fellows on service during the day and one overnight. All fellows cover patients; however, during daytime hours, one fellow focuses on admissions, consults, and deliveries, while the other leads the resident team, focusing on teaching. 

Additionally, each fellow is required to complete 1 to 9 calls per month, roughly 40 calls annually. 

Call requirements over the course fellowship are designed to facilitate graduated autonomy, whereby fellows incrementally take on greater responsibility in the unit and engage in more active problem solving of complex neonatal cases in partnership with inhouse attendings. No calls are taken during clinical service weeks, and calls may be adjusted to protect time for research, conference attendance, or vacation.

All fellows must spend additional time with the fetal center doing complex antenatal consults and complete pre-attending weeks in both the level 2 and 4 units prior to graduation. Additional required electives should be related to the fellow’s clinical or educational focus and may include transport experience, advanced vascular access techniques, additional time working with POCUS, NeuroNICU or Neurodevelopmental teams, time in CVICU, or creating specific learning opportunities for other trainees.

Learn more about our Patient Care nurseries and programs

At Stanford, we put a priority on preparing our fellows to be independent investigators upon graduation. A large portion of fellowship time is reserved for fellows to design and implement an individual research project or projects. All fellows are required to write a grant proposal during fellowship, and extensive structured support is available to guide fellows through the process. If career goals include an academic career and regular application for funding, the Department of Pediatrics Physician Scientist Bridge to K Program helps fellows launch their transition to a faculty position.

Our Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine offers a wide range of research opportunities in basic, clinical, translational, health services, and global health research. All research is customized based on individual interests. Each fellow selects one or more faculty mentors to guide them in their research and facilitate their training.

Explore our Division’s areas of research

Learn more about the research projects our current fellows are pursuing

Browse our Faculty Profiles to learn about their interests and expertise

Stanford Medicine offers a rich academic environment for fellows to learn from faculty, trainees, and other healthcare professionals. Structured didactics include:

• Multi-week orientation bootcamp for new fellows and twice yearly procedural bootcamps for current fellows

• Weekly afternoon protected time for board review and physiology education

• Weekly conferences that fellows organize and schedule

Fellows also participate in simulation-based learning at the Center for Advanced Pediatric and Perinatal Education. 

Additionally, our fellows engage in the medical education of residents, students, and healthcare professionals.