Alumni Notes: Spring 2024

Dear CHOP Alumni Family,

Remember our CHOP Alumni Motto: Keep … Tradition, Keep … in Mind, Keep … in Touch!

It’s time for our annual Chief Residents update. I have invited our fabulous chief residents to update you on CHOP’s residency training program. Special thanks Christine, Jennifer, Bryce, Nicholas, and Emma.

Resident Life — Well-being and More!

Hello from the Chiefs’ office in 9NW! We’re honored to share with some news from the CHOP Pediatric Residency Program.

We are planning a big move in the spring. New program leadership offices and a brand-new lounge are relocating from 9NW to the 3rd floor of the Philadelphia Hospital, right off the Atrium. We are looking forward to having a new space and to be more centrally located to where the residents are rotating.

In the meantime, life continues to be busy. We have welcomed 7 new babies into the CHOP Residency family and have more due to arrive in the spring and summer!

We have also welcomed Danielle Massey-Hill, LCSW, and Efia King, LCSW, our new trainee support specialists. Both Danielle and Efia are new to the program, but not new to CHOP. Efia comes to us by way of Karabots Primary Care Center, and Danielle spent time as the social worker in a variety of subspeciality departments at CHOP. Danielle and Efia work with residents and fellows to provide holistic well-being support, including one-on-one well-being check in meetings, warm hand offs to vetted mental health providers in the community, resource and benefits navigation, debriefs, and much more. We are lucky to have them!

We have also been appreciating the hard work of our newly appointed Associate Designated Institutional Officials (DOI) for Trainee Well-being, Tara Bamat, MD, and Laura Petrini, MD, who joined the Residency program in October. Tara is focused on resident well-being, and both are working on strategic planning and systems level changes to reduce burnout, improve well-being, and help trainees rediscover joy and meaning in work. Hiring Danielle and Efia was one of their first successes of the year!

Our recruitment season is coming to a close; we are recruiting for 62 interns this year. We can’t wait to welcome them to CHOP when March rolls around! We have been lucky to have some in-person second look visitors this year and have enjoyed sharing some of the CHOP spirit with residency applicants from around the country. Our resident buddies have been connecting with their resident applicants to share their experiences and words of wisdom.

Support for Resident Innovation

Last year, we were fortunate to launch the Grants for Resident Innovation and Projects (GRIP) program, which is an endowment to sustainably invest in resident projects across the spectrum of innovation. GRIP has been an early success. We have awarded 8 GRIP grants so far in the 2023 — 2024 cycle and anticipate another successful funding cycle in the spring.

Our funded grants spanned the breadth of resident research, QI/safety work, education, technology, and innovation, and included projects such as: teaching residents ASL that they can teach parents of infants in the primary setting, research on point-of-care ultrasound in the NICU, informatics analysis of heart failure outcomes, and sustainability with our lunch packaging in the residency program. We are proud of the innovative ideas of our residents and are so appreciative of the investment of Dr Joe St Geme and the generosity of the endowment funds, as well as the advocacy of the residents that led to this fund being established.

Residents were also awarded 5 Center for Leadership and Innovation in Medical Education (CLIME) grants to fund medical education research. Many residents attended conferences all over the country (and world!) to present their work, often with funding from the residency program.

Thank You

All residents benefit from members of the CHOP Alumni Association. From supporting wellness through Fellow and Resident Appreciation Week to broader advocacy to improve the education, research opportunities, and well-being of our residents.

Thank you!

The 2023 – 2024 Chief Residents

Christine Cummings, MD,   Emma Hackle, MD   Bryce Ingram, MD

Nicholas Santaniello, MD   Jennifer Sun, MD