The goal of our research program is to provide residents with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively answer a clinical question, whether one is aspiring to enter general pediatrics or a subspecialty.

 

UCSF Fresno has a variety of unique patient settings that inspire residents’ clinical questions:

 

• Children’s Hospital Central California, the only free-standing tertiary children’s hospital in the Central Valley;
• Community Regional Medical Center, a large academic center with the region’s only burn and Level I Trauma center and the area’s only perinatology program providing specialized care for high-risk pregnancies and deliveries; and
• Children’s Health Center, a busy community health center clinic serving an ethnically diverse, primarily indigent population.

 

Our research program consists of

 

• interactive lectures and small group seminars,
• close mentorship by faculty experts, and
• support for the completion and presentation of a scholarly project.

 

Residents receive full departmental support for their projects that includes access to a statistician, IRB analysts, medical library, professional poster design/publication center, and funding to cover costs for a presentation at a regional or national scientific conference.  Residents receive protected research time of 1 week in their PGY-1 year, and 2 weeks in their PGY-2 and PGY-3 years.

 

Research projects range from clinical research to evidence-based advocacy.  Examples of current and past resident projects include

 

• Prevalence of family violence in the Children’s Health Center population
• Enabling Medi-Cal mothers and newborns to leave the hospital with car seats
• A 15-year review of coccidioidomycosis at Children’s Hospital
• Disseminated MRSA and venous thrombosis
• The effect of Hmong cultural beliefs on treatment in children with chronic illness
• Procalcitonin as an inflammatory marker in pediatric patients presenting to the ER

 

For more information, contact our research program directors

 

Serena Yang, MD, MPH             Renee Kinman, MD, PhD
General Pediatrics                      Endocrinology
syang@fresno.ucsf.edu             RKinman@Childrenscentralcal.org