Pediatric Hospital Medicine


Message from Program Director

Welcome to the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship Program at Westchester Medical Center!

It is my pleasure to serve as the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship Program Director at Westchester Medical Center, located in a beautiful campus in the suburbs approximately 25 miles just north of New York City. Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center is the only pediatric quaternary care academic referral center in the lower Hudson Valley with a Level I Pediatric Trauma Center, Level I Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Burn Unit, Pediatric Emergency Department and inpatient Behavioral Health Center.

The Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship is a two-year ACGME-accredited training program designed to train pediatricians for an academic and clinical career in Pediatric Hospital Medicine. Our fellows will be well prepared for the entire spectrum of professional positions for board certified Pediatric Hospitalists including newborn care, community hospital medicine and academic medicine.  

Our program stresses excellent patient and family-centered care with graduated autonomy under the supervision of our highly supportive and collegial faculty. We have nine Pediatric Hospital Medicine attending physicians, all of whom have faculty appointments at New York Medical College. Our focus on clinical and academic excellence with an emphasis on individualized program instruction and early career development will allow fellows to succeed in any area of hospital medicine they choose to pursue.

I hope that the information on this website provides you with a helpful overview of our training program including our curriculum, goals for our fellows, the application process, and an appreciation of the many opportunities available at Westchester Medical Center. As you continue to research fellowships I hope you will find our program a good fit, and please do not hesitate to reach out to me at any time with any questions.

Sincerely,
Karen Hardy Brandstaedter, MD
Program Director, Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship
Westchester Medical Center


Program Overview and Curriculum

Mission Statement

Our mission is to train Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellows to become leaders and innovators in the growing field of Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM). We will provide a diverse, robust and comprehensive curriculum in clinical, academic and scholarly areas, teaching compassionate, high quality, high value and patient-centered care to prepare fellows for a successful career in hospital medicine. 

Our program supports Westchester Medical Center’s mission of inclusion and diversity. We acknowledge unconscious bias and are dedicated to overcoming biases in trainee recruitment, selection and retention. We are dedicated to maintaining a welcoming community of inclusion and equity among patients, all staff and faculty.

Description of Training

Overview

Our two-year PHM Fellowship is divided into three approximately equal sections: clinical medicine, scholarship/research, and individualized curriculum/elective time.

Universal Clinical Curriculum

The majority of the clinical experience will be at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital under the guidance of the Pediatric Hospitalist Service. This is where the fellow will gain experience caring for many different common and rare conditions, including patients with complex care and chronic special needs such as technologically dependent patients with ventriculoperitoneal shunts, gastrostomy tubes and tracheostomies. Access to a breadth of pediatric subspecialists including, but not limited to, infectious diseases, pulmonology, allergy/immunology, neurology, cardiology, hematology/oncology, rheumatology as well as surgical services including neurosurgery, pediatric surgery, orthopaedics, and otolaryngology is available in a collegial warm environment. The Pediatric Hospitalist Service works with pediatric residents and medical students, and the fellow will have considerable opportunities to teach.

Fellows will also work with pediatric anesthesiologists and pediatric intensivists and will become familiar with procedural sedation. In addition, fellows will spend four weeks in the newborn nursery working with our academic general pediatricians. Finally, a community hospital rotation will take place at MidHudson Regional Hospital, under the guidance of the community-based pediatric hospitalists. The community experience will include caring for hospitalized pediatric patients as well as consulting on pediatric inpatients on surgical services and in the Emergency Department.

Research

Fellows will meet with a research mentor regularly who will help conceptualize and establish a project. This mentor will work to ensure the fellow has an adequate knowledge basis regarding research protocol and will help with composing a research hypothesis that allows for successful completion of an IRB. The fellow will have the opportunity to present their research periodically at appropriate meetings and will ultimately be mentored through completion of an abstract for presentation at a national meeting and ideally submission of a manuscript to a peer reviewed journal.

Individualized Curriculum

During the beginning of the fellowship fellows will meet with the Program Director and/or faculty mentor to discuss their goals for fellowship and their interests for their individualized curriculum. The individualized curriculum will be composed of 2-4-week blocks and can include clinical and non-clinical electives.

Note:  Sites 1 and 2 are different sites only on location.They are part of the same sponsoring institution – Westchester Medical Center

Site 1 = Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center Valhalla Campus

Site 2 = Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center, MidHudson Regional Hospital Campus, Poughkeepsie

*Inpatient clinical medicine including care of complex chronic diseases and surgical co-management

**Individualized curriculum/ electives to be determined by fellow and Program Director

Facilities and Resources

WMCHealth is a 1,700-bed healthcare system with nine hospitals on seven campuses spanning 6,200 square miles. The main campus in Valhalla, New York is home to three hospitals: the flagship Westchester Medical Center, the Behavioral Health Center and Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. 

Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital is an academic, regional referral center with a catchment area of 150 square miles and 1.5 million people across urban, suburban, and rural communities with diverse demographics just 25 miles north of New York City. With 136 beds, including 18 PICU beds and 49 RNICU beds, MFCH draws from the seven lower Hudson Valley counties of New York, northern New Jersey and western Connecticut. The hospital has a beautiful and modern facility whose exterior and interior designs represent the communities of Westchester and create a healing, family-centered environment despite the extreme acuity of the patients we serve. We have amazing nurses, pharmacists, therapists, child life specialists, social workers, ancillary services, in addition to all pediatric subspecialties and surgical subspecialties represented.

MidHusdon Regional Hospital (MHRH) is a community hospital located in Poughkeepsie, approximately an hour north of the main Valhalla campus. MHRH has a nine-bed pediatric unit, a pediatric emergency room, and 24-7 pediatric hospitalists in-house coverage.

New York Medical College of Touro University System is one of the oldest and largest medical schools in the United States. It is comprised of three schools: the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and the School of Health Sciences and Practice. All doctors in the Department of Pediatrics are faculty at NYMC. This provides a very rich environment for learning, mentorship, and scholarly collaboration for all trainees. 

Summary

The training program in pediatric hospital medicine is a highly selective program designed to prepare pediatricians for an academic and clinical career in pediatric hospital medicine.  As a result, fellows are well trained for the spectrum of positions available for board certified Pediatric Hospital Physicians.  


Our Fellow


Jessica Singer, MD – PGY-4

Medical School: George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Residency: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai


Faculty


Karen Hardy Brandstaedter, MD
Program Director, Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Robin Altman, MD
Program Associate Director, Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship
Chief, General Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center
Medical Director of Quality and Safety, Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital
Director of Pediatric Hospitalist Program 
Professor of Pediatrics and Vice Chair Quality and Safety, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College 


Rachel Biller Redlich, MD
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center 
Pediatric Subinternship Director
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Mary Helen Brennan, MD
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center 
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Melissa Cellini, MD, MEd
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center 
Assistant Director of Foundations of Clinical Medicine in School of Medicine
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Ilyssa Henle, MD
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center
Co-Associate Director for Operations of Pediatric Hospitalist Program
Advisory Dean in the School of Medicine
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Aditi Kamat, MD
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center 
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Yocheved Lindenbaum, MD
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center 
Assistant Pediatric Clerkship Director for Third Year Medical Students   
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Kristina Melchert, MD
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center
Co-Associate Director for Quality of Pediatric Hospitalist Program 
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Rebekka Levis, DO
Associate Chief, General Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center
Medical Director of the Newborn Nursery
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Carla Gendron, MD
Site Director for Mid Hudson Regional Hospital, Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Mid-Hudson Regional Hospital at Westchester Medical Center 
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Samuel Barst, MD
Chief, Pediatric Anesthesiology, Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center
Clinical Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Department of Anesthesiology, New York Medical College


Erin Rescoe, MD
Attending, Pediatric Critical Care, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center
Program Director, Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship, anticipated 2024
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Sankaran Krishnan, MD, MPH
Chief of Pediatric Pulmonology, Allergy, Immunology and Sleep Medicine, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center 
Program Director, Fellowship in Pediatric Pulmonology
Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health, New York Medical College


Edmund LaGamma, MD
Chief, Division of Newborn Medicine, Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center
Medical Director, Regional Neonatal Center
Program Director, Neonatal-Perinatal Fellowship
Professor of Pediatrics, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, New York Medical College


Dylan Fray Stewart, MD
Chief, Pediatric Surgery, Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center 
Surgeon-in-Chief, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital
Associate Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, New York Medical College


Brittany Kelly
Program Coordinator, Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship
Assistant Division Manager, General Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine
Program Manager, Pediatric Hospital Medicine
Instructor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College
E:mail: Brittany_Kelly@bchphysicians.org
Office Phone: 914.594.2182


How to Apply

Applications

Applications should be submitted through the Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS), which can be accessed using the following link: https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-fellowships-eras/applying-fellowships-eras.

Applicants will need to have completed a residency in General Pediatrics by June, 2024.

Please note that our program requires a minimum of three letters of recommendation, including one from their Pediatric Residency Program Director.

Interviews

We are currently reviewing applications in ERAS. Our program will notify applicants through ERAS as to whether they have been selected for an interview.

Interviews will take place in October 2023, and applicants will be provided with detailed information regarding the logistics of the interview days.

In accordance with recommendations from the AAMC and the AAPD and to ensure a uniform interview process that is equitable to all applicants, our fellowship interviews will be held exclusively virtually. 

Match 

The program participates in the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP). Our NRMP program code is: 2157334F0.

The deadline for certification of Rank Order Lists is November 15, 2023, and Match Day is November 29, 2023.

Visa Sponsorship 

Westchester Medical Center will sponsor J-1 visas. Sponsorship of H1-B visas will be considered on a case-by-case basis for the most highly qualified applicants.