The mission of our fellowship is to advance pediatric emergency care by developing a diverse group of tomorrow's best Pediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM) academic clinicians and leaders. We have robust training experiences and resources to support your growth as a clinician, educator, and researcher/scholar. Los Angeles has wonderful weather, outdoor and indoor recreation, culture, entertainment, and food. We look forward to meeting you!
Learn More About the Training Program
Clinical Training
As a fellow, you will be immersed in a busy, urban Pediatric Emergency Department providing tertiary care and Level 1 Pediatric Trauma care with nearly 100,000 annual patient visits including an average of 900 trauma activations a year.
One of our program's strengths is its clinical volume and high acuity, which allow for a rich and thorough learning experience. You will gain clinical experience in caring for severe trauma patients, leading medical resuscitations, and performing numerous ED procedures, while managing ED flow and balancing effective teaching.
Clinical training in our program follows a graduated autonomy model where new fellows start as “super-residents” for the first 3 months. They then advance to precepting fellows, managing a wide variety of resident learners. Clinical shifts in your first two years are day and evening shifts precepted by PEM attendings. Third years are offered the opportunity to moonlight shifts in the ED as full attendings.
Electives are offered in all Pediatric medical and surgical subspecialties and scheduled based on individual fellow’s desired area of interest.
Adult Emergency Medicine training is required for all Pediatrics-trained fellows and is conducted in conjunction with UCLA Emergency Medicine and LA General/USC Emergency Medicine. Rotations include: Trauma, Resuscitation, General Emergency Medicine, and Toxicology.
Program Didactics
Our program provides protected time every Wednesday for both division-wide and fellowship education. Twice a month, each fellow attends a PEM division didactic session consisting of case conferences, journal clubs, educational workshops, and research talks to name a few. This session is followed by a dedicated fellowship session consisting of a boards focused curriculum including didactic lectures, simulation sessions, and practical labs such as cadaver lab. Additional protected time is provided for research workshops, ultrasound sessions, and breakfast club, an educational session designed to address non-clinical, PEM topics.
CHLA’s Graduate Medical Education department also provides a fellow curriculum that our fellows are encouraged to attend which address a wide variety of topics including burnout, wellness, and quality improvement.
Fellows are also eligible for free tuition for classes and degree programs in multiple disciplines at University of Southern California (USC). In addition to a wide variety of workshops and conferences hosted by CHLA, the Saban Research Institute, and USC.
Meet the Fellows
Click here to view our current fellows.
Meet the Attendings
Click here to view our current attendings.
Research and Scholarship
3-year PEM fellows are required to complete a scholarly research project—clinical, administrative, or educational—for dissemination to a national conference and submission to a peer review journal. 2-year fellows are encouraged to do the same.
To help assist in study design, grant writing, presentation and publications, fellows are paired with 2 research mentors in the division as well as receive support from the PEM Research Staff team. The full-time Research staff assist in the administrative aspects of your study as well as planning. This helps get your feet off the ground quickly if you are novice researcher and can amplify your academic productivity and grant-writing for those more seasoned. An average of 1 to 4 Research Assistants are present in the ED on a daily basis to assist with all Divisional research. These include undergraduate and medical students from USC.
Faculty have various content expertise including but not limited to: ultrasound, simulation, resuscitation, medical education, process improvement, communication, sepsis, health policy, advocacy, transport medicine, sedation and analgesia, dehydration, mental health, infectious diseases, trauma, and physician wellbeing.
Recent fellowship research projects have included: Serious Gaming and Medical Education, Inhaled Corticosteroid Prescription from ED, Hot Debriefing in Critical Incidents, Disaster Preparedness in patients with high medical needs, Simulation of Novel Communication Systems in disaster, and End-Tidal CO2 in Bronchiolitis.
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Division of Emergency Medicine & Transport is one of three Hospital-based Emergency Department Associates of the West (WPEMR) Node within the Pediatric Emergency Clinical Applied Research Network (PECARN). This is a federally funded HRSA Research network consisting of 7 Nodes within the U.S. conducting multiple large-scale complex emergency and pre-hospital pediatric clinical trials and studies. A large number of Network Mentors are here to assist you and provide opportunities for collaboration and involvement in research and innovative scholarship through PECARN.
How to Apply
The CHLA Emergency Medicine Fellowship Program is a part of the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) and participates in the Pediatric Specialties Match. Our program takes applications via the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). If you are interested in applying to our fellowship program, you will need to apply through ERAS application process.
Program Fast Facts
ACGME Accredited: Yes
Fellows Per Year: 3-4
Application Deadline: ERAS
Program Duration:
- 3 years (Pediatrics Residency)
- 2 or 3 years (Emergency Medicine Residency)
Application due date: August 1
Salary Minimums:
Post Graduate Year 4: $78,531 minimum
Post Graduate Year 5: $81,677 minimum
Post Graduate Year 6: $84,712 minimum
Post Graduate Year 7: $87,652 minimum
Post Graduate Year 8: $90,952 minimum
Post Graduate Year 9+: Please contact gme@chla.usc.edu
Benefits Include: Health and dental insurance, 4 weeks of paid vacation and sick days, yearly educational stipend, monthly meal stipend, and 401(k) matching up to 3%