The Yale-affiliated Pediatric Residency Program at Bridgeport Hospital and the Yale Pediatric Residency Program integrated as of July 2001. Bridgeport Hospital now serves as a GME training site for residents in the following programs:

• The Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Program at Bridgeport Hospital
• The Yale Pediatrics Residency Program
• The Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Program at Yale-New Haven Hospital
• The Yale/Bridgeport Integrated Residency in Emergency Medicine

Bridgeport Hospital has a long tradition of graduate medical education in Pediatrics. Yale Pediatric Residents began rotations at Bridgeport Hospital in the 1960's and in the early 1970's Bridgeport Hospital initiated its own pediatric residency which recruited residents continuously until the integration in 2001.

Bridgeport Hospital provides the resident with the opportunity for education in a community-based hospital that serves a large and economically diverse population. There are approximately 1,300 inpatient admissions, 2,600 deliveries, 500 admissions to the Newborn ICU, 13,000 ambulatory visits and 18,000 Pediatric Emergency Department visits annually. Resident education is provided by faculty specialists, resident colleagues, and community-based practitioners. There are over 100 members in the Department of Pediatrics, of whom approximately 15 currently comprise the full and part time hospital-based faculty. The atmosphere is friendly and informal, and the residents are valued for their desire to learn and the excellent care they bring to their patients. Care is provided to the entire spectrum of pediatric medicine, from the smallest premature infants to college students, from the well child to the seriously ill, and to children from the inner city and the affluent suburbs. The Bridgeport/Yale integration affords our pediatric residents the unique opportunity to combine and learn community-based pediatric medicine with the tertiary care provided by the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital. The blend of community and university experience presents the resident with a wide range of pediatric patients and problems, and encourages the development of skills and independent decision making, as well as the appropriate use of sub-specialist consultants. The full time faculty from the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital is actively involved at Bridgeport Hospital and provide many Grand Rounds, resident teaching conferences, consultations and supervise selected subspecialty clinics.

The educational curriculum includes sign-in and walk rounds, radiology rounds and ambulatory conferences daily. There are attending rounds three times a week, morning report twice a week, grand rounds weekly and noon teaching conferences daily. Selected teaching conferences are presented via teleconferences from Yale.

Strengths and unique aspects of the educational curriculum at Bridgeport include: (1) a Pediatric Asthma Center providing comprehensive asthma care, (2) a non-invasive Pediatric Cardiology Service including expertise in fetal ultrasonography, (3) a well-developed Adolescent Medicine curriculum which includes care to students at Fairfield University and to teens at the Bridgeport Juvenile Detention Center, (4) a comprehensive curriculum in Behavioral/Developmental Pediatrics, (5) a full variety of Pediatric Subspecialty Clinics, (6) an excellent Neonatology Program and faculty recognized for their excellence as teachers and clinicians, (7) a Pediatric Emergency Service open from 4 p.m. to midnight daily, (8) a wide range of practice models in the community for the residents to observe and (9) a long tradition of Med/Peds excellence in a program begun in 1975.

For more information contact:

Thomas L. Kennedy MD
Chairman, Department of Pediatrics
Bridgeport Hospital
267 Grant Street
Bridgeport, CT 06610
Phone: (203) 384-3712
Fax: (203) 384-4031
Email: ptkenn@bpthosp.org