Neonatal-Perinatal Fellowship

The Brandon NICU is a 59 private-room state of the art quaternary regional referral unit providing care for newborns with the full spectrum of medical and surgical problems. The Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital is within the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and delivers approximately 5,500 newborns each year including those with complex congenital anomalies.

Fellows manage all forms of mechanical ventilation, therapeutic hypothermia, inhaled nitric oxide therapy, peritoneal dialysis, and ECMO. In addition, fellows participate in air and ground medical transport, supervise pediatric residents, provide both inpatient and outpatient antenatal consultations, and receive hands-on training in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) and procedural skills. During the 3-year program, in addition to the Brandon NICU, fellows rotate through a Community Level III NICU (Corewell Health Dearborn Hospital) and the University of Michigan Pediatric Cardiothoracic Unit (a 30-bed unit that provides care for children with the full spectrum of congenital heart disease).

The training program is three years in duration. Over the course of training, fellows spend approximately 12 months in clinical training and 24 months in research, teaching, quality improvement, and administrative activity. 

Clinical rotations and overnight call are equally divided during the three years with fellows assigned approximately 4 months of clinical rotations and 40 to 45 in-house overnight calls each year. A comprehensive didactic curriculum based on the ABP content specifications supplements the clinical and research training to prepare fellows for the Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Subspecialty Board examination.

Fellows have access to a wide range of mentors both within and external to the division to pursue scholarly interests including basic science, translational, clinical, ethics and educational research. 

Areas of interest within the division include quality improvement, hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, neonatal thrombosis, neonatal delirium, medical education and simulation, antenatal counseling, breastfeeding medicine, post-discharge care, perinatal ethics, and neonatal resuscitation. The Brandon NICU is a member of both the Vermont Oxford Network (VON) and the Children’s Hospitals Neonatal Consortium (CHNC). 

The Pediatric Department sponsors a 10-month Core Scholarly Activities curriculum for fellows across all pediatric subspecialties. Additional training may be obtained in Health Services Research, Clinical Research Design and Statistical Analysis, and Health Professional Education.