The Department of Pediatrics is composed of 199 full time faculty at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), 55 faculty at Women’s and Children’s Hospital at Los Angeles County Hospital (LAC+USC), 11 faculty in Medical Education (sited at the KSOM campus) and 1 faculty member at the Student Health facility on University Park Campus. These faculty and their programs provide a broad range of clinical, educational, and research programs to advance child health care and academic pediatrics.

The Department is composed of two distinct programs that interrelate on an educational, clinical, and scientific level, but maintain separate divisional administration (except for neonatology) and unique identities. Although they have a common mission, the goals and objectives of each component are focused and appropriate to their facilities and opportunities.

At CHLA, the emphasis is on research, tertiary clinical services, and educational programs that are aimed at the development of academic pediatricians and pediatric community leaders. The faculty is large (301 FTE’s, including 56 members of other departments), highly specialized, and covers a broad range of competencies. There are four Centers at CHLA, representing large volume multidisciplinary programs of national prominence. They are: Heart, Cancer and Blood Diseases, Orthopedics and Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism.
A few of the accomplishments at CHLA over the past decade are:

Performed the world’s first successful gene therapy for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease and introduced the first gene therapy trial for children with AIDS
Identified molecules that interact with genes to trigger the in vitro growth of lung stem cells
Developed a treatment strategy that greatly improved survival of children with neuroblastoma
Created in innovative laser/chemotherapy treatment for retinoblastoma

The pediatric residency program at CHLA has 77 residents and there are 51 subspecialty fellows in adolescent medicine, cardiology, critical care medicine, emergency medicine, endocrinology, gastroenterology, hematology/oncology, infectious diseases, neurology, pulmonary medicine, and rheumatology. The gastroenterology fellowship program, although administered at CHLA, has rotations at LAC+USC on the pediatric service and the adult/ gastroenterology/liver/endoscopy rotations. In the 80’s and 90’s, CHLA was well known for its premier program in primary pediatrics education. Accomplishment in that area continues as attention is turned to strengthening the record of subspecialty education, in particular, preparing specialty and subspecialty fellows for successful academic careers. This challenge is being met through coordinated planning and institutional investment as discussed in section IV.

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles was founded in 1901 and has been affiliated with USC since 1938. There are 270 licensed beds and approximately 12,000 admissions per year and an outpatient volume of 280,000 visits/year. The Chair is supported by Associate Chairs in Administration and Education (Robert Adler), Faculty Affairs (Stuart Siegel), Research (Yves De Clerk), and Faculty Mentoring (Charles Gomer). The Chair of Pediatrics also serves as Vice-President for Pediatrics and Academic Affairs. All faculty appointments at CHLA, Pediatrics, Surgery, Anesthesiology, Pathology and Radiology, are administered through the Office of Academic Affairs.

At LAC+USC, the emphasis is on service to the underserved and primary care education. The Pediatric Pavilion at LAC+USC has 70 licensed beds, 4,279 discharges per year and 88,511 outpatient visits per year. The faculty is smaller, 55 FTE, with clinicians who model a broad range of primary and subspecialty skills. At LAC+USC, there are 33 residents in the Pediatric Program, 22 residents in the Combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Program, 9 neonatology fellows and 2 allergy-immunology fellows. Doctor Larry Opas serves as Associate Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, Director of the pediatric program at LAC+USC and has oversight of all residency programs at LAC+USC.

Subspecialty programs share some educational, clinical and research activities across the two sites. It is important for the two sites to have distinct residency programs because they appeal to different candidates and provide unique learning opportunities, The LAC+USC program is best suited for the trainee who desires an intimate learning environment with faculty who model a broad range of primary and subspecialty care. The CHLA program appeals to the individual who wishes to experience primary and tertiary care of a large and diverse population of patients with a broad range of diseases and in an environment that emphasizes research and tertiary subspecialty care. For this reason, there has been no attempt to merge the programs, but rather to develop enhanced resources that can be shared by both programs.

Despite the increasing hurdles faced by healthcare, particularly those that care for children, we are so fortunate to have the unswerving support of the leadership at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, the Keck School of Medicine and the University of Southern California. Due to their commitment, we are able to enhance our research, clinical and educational program and remain true to our mission.