Continuity Care Clinic
The Continuity Clinic is the cornerstone of the primary care experience in the University of Florida Pediatric Residency Program. Throughout their three years of training, residents develop and manage their own longitudinal patient panels, building meaningful relationships with children and families while developing the skills necessary to provide comprehensive, family-centered pediatric care.
Residents gain extensive experience in preventive care, acute illness, chronic disease management, nutrition, growth and development, behavioral and developmental concerns, and age-appropriate anticipatory guidance. The clinic serves a diverse patient population that includes healthy children from the local community, patients transitioning back to primary care following hospitalization, and children with medical and developmental complexity. Our continuity clinics provide more than 30,000 patient visits annually, with approximately 65% of patients insured through Medicaid or CHIP or uninsured.
To strengthen continuity and resident ownership of patient care, the program has expanded its ambulatory curriculum to include five to six dedicated continuity clinic weeks each year, in addition to continuity experiences incorporated into other rotations. During each continuity clinic week, residents participate in seven half-day patient care sessions and two protected administrative sessions. This structure provides dedicated time for residents to review results, complete documentation, coordinate referrals and subspecialty care, communicate with families, and follow up on longitudinal management plans. The result is a more authentic primary care experience in which residents increasingly assume responsibility for all aspects of their patients’ care.
Residents are supervised by faculty from the Division of General Pediatrics, who provide direct teaching and graduated supervision throughout residency. Clinical encounters are complemented by a structured ambulatory curriculum, including resources such as PedsTopics.org, which reinforces core general pediatric knowledge through brief, case-based learning integrated into the continuity clinic experience.
By graduation, residents have developed broad experience managing their own pediatric patient panels across infancy, childhood, and adolescence and are well prepared to provide comprehensive primary care in a wide variety of practice settings.
Residents currently complete their continuity clinic experience at UF Health Pediatrics – Gerold L. Schiebler Children’s Medical Services Center.
Pediatric After Hours & Acute Clinic
Pediatrics After Hours
Pediatrics After Hours (PAH) is an acute care clinic stemming from a unique university and community partnership. This clinic provides after-hours care to children in the Gainesville community as almost all of the local, private, and university-based practice participate. The PAH clinic operates on nights and weekends and is staffed by both the Department of Pediatrics and affiliated faculty from the community who teach and supervise the residents. The clinic serves as an excellent avenue for learning general acute pediatric care from a multitude of experienced community pediatricians. Additionally, this is an exceptional networking opportunity for residents who plan to practice outpatient pediatrics in our local community as their future career. Each resident also takes phone calls from parents of continuity patients as well as private patients during their time on the Pediatric After Hours portion acquiring critical telephone triage skills. The phone calls are supervised by the faculty on call for PAH. Pediatric After Hours is located at the Gerold L. Schiebler CMS Center.
To learn more about PAH, “Pediatrics After-Hours: A Twenty-Year Academic-Community Partnership for Acute Care Delivery” published in The Journal of Pediatrics.
Acute Clinic
The Acute Clinic is the daytime counterpart to Pediatrics After Hours. It supplies acute care to sick children from our continuity clinic panels. It is supervised by faculty from the Division of General Pediatrics. Second and third-year residents staff both clinics.
Emergency Medicine
Our state-of-the-art pediatric emergency department has 15 private treatment rooms, 4 semi-private rooms, 2 private triage rooms, five observation bays with pediatric-specific equipment and technology, two resuscitation rooms, 2 exams rooms specifically designed for children with communicable diseases, a private room for pediatric specific radiology imaging, and one conscious-sedation room. It also has two waiting rooms designed to isolate children with communicable diseases from those without. Residents do 8-12 hour shifts while rotating there and are supervised by experienced ED attendings, the majority of whom are board-certified in pediatric emergency medicine. The emergency room has easy access to radiology facilities as well as having full ancillary support.
Learn more about the Pediatric Emergency Room
Developmental Pediatrics
During this rotation, residents learn basic concepts of normal child development and screening, gain knowledge of conditions that contribute to learning disabilities and developmental delays, and learn the basic skills involved in the medical evaluation of the developmentally delayed child. This is accomplished under the direction of both a child psychiatrist and a full-time pediatric developmental faculty member. Time is spent in a variety of clinics, including a multidisciplinary clinic for special needs children, a neuro-developmental clinic, an ADHD clinic, a child psychiatry clinic, OT, PT, and speech therapy.
Adolescent Pediatrics
The Adolescent Medicine Rotation provides residents with a focused outpatient experience caring for a diverse population of adolescents and young adults. Residents develop confidence in conducting developmentally appropriate, confidential interviews; obtaining comprehensive psychosocial histories using the SSHADESS framework; and counseling patients and families about sensitive health concerns.
Clinical experiences emphasize preventive care, behavioral and mental health, sexual and reproductive health, menstrual concerns, substance use, eating disorders, obesity, acne, sports participation, chronic disease management, and transition to adult care. Residents also gain experience using common screening tools, supporting shared decision-making, recognizing risk and protective factors, and determining when specialty referral is appropriate. The rotation is designed to build practical skills that residents can apply in any pediatric career path.
Advocacy and Community Pediatrics Rotation
The pediatric advocacy rotation comprises a three-year, experiential, longitudinal project, as well as 2 two-week blocks devoted solely to advocacy activities during the PL-1 and PL-2 years. Residents identify a faculty member to mentor them through their project and are encouraged to choose a project which addresses an issue they are passionate about. The longitudinal project is based on community or legislative advocacy and is designed to give residents the skills necessary to develop, implement, and evaluate an advocacy activity from beginning to end.