Pediatric residents at The Mount Sinai Hospital embark on a learning experience that offers one of the most unique and challenging patient populations in the country, requiring rotations at sites ranging from an acclaimed children’s hospital to community clinics to patient homes as part of a groundbreaking visiting doctors and complex care program.
In the process, trainees acquire, with the help of an equally exceptional faculty, the skills, knowledge, and passion for the field that prepare them for careers in primary care, subspecialty and academic medicine, and public health.
“Being part of professional health teams that deliver care right to the homes and communities of patients is a unique learning experience for our residents,” says Jessica Reid-Adam, MD, Director of the Pediatric Residency Program, and Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“We pride ourselves on our urban-based primary care training that serves the medical needs of our neighbors in the surrounding communities of East Harlem, Queens, and the Bronx,” says Jessica Reid-Adam, MD, Director of the Pediatric Residency Program, and Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Residents experience a real-world training environment with an unparalleled mix of pathologies, cultures, languages, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It’s an extraordinary population to not just care for, but learn from.”
About 25 interns who enter the program each year have the opportunity to pursue a wide range of educational pathways and clinical tracks on the road to becoming well-rounded pediatricians. Those residencies include combined four-year pediatric and medical genetics; combined four-year internal medicine and pediatrics; three-year pediatric physician-scientist program; five-year child neurology; and five-year triple-board residency in pediatrics, psychiatry, and child psychiatry. Upon completion of the categorical residency in pediatrics, about half of residents enter fellowship training, while the remainder become practicing general pediatricians.
Mount Sinai’s program indeed offers residents a broad and rigorous training landscape. The hub of their activities is Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital, which is listed among the country’s top children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report® in its 2024-25 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings. The most highly ranked specialties are diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology and GI surgery, and nephrology. Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital also stands among the top 20 in the country among medical school pediatrics departments for National Institutes of Health research funding.
“The fact we are a children’s hospital within a major academic medical center allows for truly balanced training thanks to the exposure residents get to highly skilled specialists across the institution,” says Dr. Reid-Adam, a specialist in pediatric nephology. “We interface regularly with members from medicine, psychiatry, environmental medicine, emergency medicine, and genetics communities, and there are opportunities for interdepartmental collaborations with many other departments and institutes. The ways in which residents benefit include the sharing of clinical knowledge and expertise, and mentorship opportunities and career guidance from some of the brightest minds in general pediatrics and an array of subspecialties.”
That clinical exposure extends to areas such as the Mount Sinai Health System’s active transplant program, and the growing field of environmental medicine. Mount Sinai is one of 11 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units (PEHSUs), a national network that works with community groups, schools, parents, and government agencies to address reproductive and children’s environmental health issues. Environmental medicine is woven tightly into Mount Sinai’s curriculum for trainees, underscoring how integral environmental health has become to pediatric health.
Residents also become actively engaged in Mount Sinai’s Pediatrics Visiting Doctors Program, which works in tandem with the institution’s Complex Care Program, to help young patients whose multiple medical issues or dependence on devices such as ventilator systems severely restrict their mobility.
“Being part of professional health teams that deliver care right to the homes and communities of patients is a unique learning experience for our residents,” says Dr. Reid-Adam. “It gives them a much better understanding of the kinds of challenges they’ll face as they begin their careers as pediatricians.”