Excellent clinical care and scholarly success depend upon a broad knowledge base of the underlying basic sciences and relevant clinical literature. Based in the Division of Newborn Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, the Harvard Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship Training Program provides our fellows with numerous opportunities to learn and to teach in both didactic and interactive settings. Core conferences that address clinical and scientific topics are offered daily, and are supplemented with regional conferences as well as visiting professorships by leaders in contemporary neonatal medicine.

Fellows Core Curriculum Seminar

The weekly Core Curriculum Seminar ensures complete coverage of the fundamental principles underlying neonatal practice. Content is presented in modules based on organ system or clinical topic, with each module consisting of between five and ten one-hour sessions. Speakers are chosen carefully from faculty both within neonatology and in the relevant subspecialties, and are asked to adhere to specific objectives keyed closely to the American Board of Pediatrics content specifications. The full cycle of seminars is completed over the three-year fellowship.

The Fellow Core Curriculum, in addition to presenting content relevant to the physiology and pathophysiology of neonatology, also includes key lectures on understanding health inequity and the important role of neonatologists in actively working against bias and discrimination to improve the health of all newborns.

Newborn Grand Rounds and Presentation Mentoring Program

Newborn Grand Rounds have long been a primary mode of communication between physicians. Fellows in the Harvard Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship Program present Neonatal Grand Rounds once in the first year and once in the second year. These comprehensive, state-of-the-art presentations are keyed to a clinical case and address multiple American Board of Pediatrics competencies, including Medical Knowledge, Practice-Based Learning and Improvement, and Interpersonal and Communication Skills.

The Presentation Mentoring Program enhances the experience by matching fellows with a faculty mentor, who helps to define the relevant issues and plan an approach, reviews content, slides and anticipated questions from the audience, and provides formative feedback following the talk.

“The Neonatal Canon” JOURNAL CLUB

In order to practice rigorously evidence-based medicine, neonatologists must develop skills in the critical appraisal of published research reports. The Neonatal Canon Journal Club, by alternating readings of both “Classic” and contemporary “Cutting Edge” articles, teaches these skills while introducing fellows to those seminal articles in the neonatal literature of the past ten to twenty years with which all clinicians should be familiar. Its objectives are as follows:

• To become proficient with critical appraisal of both observational studies and randomized controlled trials;
• To become familiar with strengths, weaknesses and impact of the seminal neonatal interventional studies published in the past 15 years; and
• To learn how to interpret meta-analyses and systematic reviews.

Newborn Epidemiology and Clinical Research Seminar

This seminar is a venue for the discussion of interesting approaches to clinical and epidemiological research with applicability to newborns and children. It is attended by a broad multidisciplinary audience, and speakers include local, regional and national experts. The seminar encourages active exploration of factors that influence and explain infant morbidity and mortality, as well as novel methodological approaches to the study of newborn health, including those in the fields of epidemiology, health policy, quality improvement, patient-oriented clinical research, and health inequity in neonatology and pediatrics.

Newborn Medicine Research Seminar Series

The bimonthly Friday Newborn Medicine Research Seminar is an opportunity for all members of the Harvard Program in Neonatology to present their research to one another. This seminar exposes fellows to faculty interests and expertise, serves the important purpose of bringing together faculty across a very broad range of scholarly interests, and facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. Fellows also present their work formally in their senior year.