Receiving Care at an Academic Medical Center

Each year, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles provides care for more than 97,000 children. As an academic medical center, we bring together the fields of medicine, education and research to offer exceptional, quality care for your child.

Patient Care and Education

Being a doctor involves continuous education and training for both new and experienced clinicians alike. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is one of America's premier teaching hospitals, affiliated with the Keck School of Medicine of USC. In partnership with USC, our doctors have been training medical students, resident physicians and fellows for more than 75 years in classroom and clinical settings through their role as faculty members.

Approach to Care

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles takes great pride in helping to develop the expertise of the next generation of clinicians and teachers to benefit children in our community and beyond. As a result, children who visit our hospital and clinics are often seen by two doctors. The first is a fellow, a doctor who has completed a minimum of three years of clinical residency training. The fellow is partnered closely with doctors at our hospital for additional training.

Next, one of our staff doctors sees your child after being briefed by the fellow about his or her findings. Depending on the department or division your child is seen in, a resident physician and sometimes a medical student may also see your child before the staff doctor arrives. Although this approach to care may take a little longer, working together as a team results in the best care for your child, combining the knowledge base of multiple clinicians.

Research

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is also a national leader in pediatric research. The Saban Research Institute is one of the few freestanding research centers in the United States designated exclusively for pediatric clinical and laboratory research.

Our researchers and physician-researchers are dedicated to constantly improving patient care by bringing the best ideas from research labs to clinic and hospital rooms, advancing diagnosis and treatment options for children. They have designed research studies that have resulted in billions of dollars of funding from the most prestigious national organizations, including the National Institutes of Health.

Because of our commitment to excellence in medicine, education and research, and our strong passion for improving childrens’ health, we are recognized as one of the nation’s top hospitals in the U.S. News & World Report's Best Children's Hospitals List. Our doctors also consistently appear on the Best Doctors in America® List.