Pediatric Surgery Fellowship

The Children’s Mercy Hospital has a rich history of training the future of pediatric surgery and is recognized as a leader in innovative clinical care, minimally invasive surgery, and research excellence. Since inception in 1975, 40 fellows have successfully graduated from the pediatric surgery fellowship program at Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas City. 

The educational goal of the pediatric surgery training program is to take a general surgery residency graduate from a position where he/she may know little about pediatric surgery and allow that person to gain knowledge and experience in physiology, the disease processes, and the preoperative, intra- operative, postoperative care of infants and children. This goal is achieved through didactic and other educational conferences, and through clinical training.

Through these educational avenues, the fellow acquires an understanding of:

• General and thoracic pediatric surgical conditions

• Significant exposure to the indications for and operative management of minimally invasive surgical procedures

• Physiology and operative procedures for liver, kidney, and intestinal transplantation

• Non-operative care of injured children

• Management of the critically ill neonate or pediatric patient in an ICU setting

• In-depth exposure to the management of burned children

• Exposure to pediatric urological conditions

The pediatric surgical educational experience for fellows includes two or three PSFs and the general surgical residents who rotate on the service from other institutions. The program consists of didactic teaching, a regular conference schedule, daily rounds, outpatient and follow-up clinic evaluations, and one-on-one experience with the attending staff in the operating room.

The Pediatric Surgical Training Program at Children’s Mercy Hospital is under the institutional oversight and sponsorship of the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Medicine.  An internal review of this training program is performed by the Graduate Medical Education Committee of the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Medicine in the mid-term of the period of accreditation by the ACGME Residency Review Committee for Surgery.

Beginning July 1, 1997, a Surgical Critical Care Fellowship was approved by the ACGME in addition to the pediatric surgery fellowship. All critical care for surgical patients is provided by the PSFs and the surgical critical care fellow (SCCF) in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.