About Social Pediatrics

Welcome to the Residency Program in Social Pediatrics!  We look forward to working with you during the next few years.  This guide is intended to aid you in navigating the clinic at CHCC and the experience of being a resident in two departments – Pediatrics and Family & Social Medicine.   

How is Social Pediatrics different from Categorical Pediatrics?

❑ Philosophy:  Social Pediatrics aims to combine excellence in pediatric clinical training with a focus on social determinants of health, primary care, advocacy, community medicine, and public health.

❑   Practice:  

SM Orientation Month: During intern year, you will have one month (cycle 5) dedicated to Social Medicine. Through lectures, visits, meetings, and community projects, you will be introduced to the basic principles of social medicine. You are joined by the interns in Family Practice and Social Internal Medicine for the month.

Social Medicine Project: Most of this will take place in your 2nd and 3rd years, but intern year (particularly Social Medicine Month) is a good time to start thinking about what type of project you might want to do, and what subjects interest you.  It is also a good time to work on locating a mentor and identifying community partners. 

To help guide you through your project we have created a research guide and a research curriculum that will take place during Tuesday Afternoons.

Clinic: Our clinic, the Comprehensive Health Care Center (CHCC), is located in the South Bronx, at 305 161st Street (about 6-7 blocks from Yankee Stadium), off the Grand Concourse.

The community is one of the most economically disadvantaged districts in the country.

Our patients are mostly African-American and Latino/a, with a large Spanish-speaking population.

During intern year, you are in clinic one afternoon each week, like your categorical peers. Over the course of that year, your main clinical focus is inpatient pediatrics; the following 2 years will provide the time and structure for intensive primary care outpatient learning.

Partnership: During 2nd and 3rd years of residency, SP residents are grouped into partners (you choose partners by the middle of intern year). Each pair shares inpatient and outpatient responsibilities. This means that you share a panel in clinic, and one of you is there every afternoon (except Tuesdays). Each pair manages four half-day afternoon clinic sessions per week, balanced by time on the inpatient wards.

Community Pediatrics: In addition to the traditional primary care clinical curriculum, we also provide education in community pediatrics (including advocacy, leadership, community oriented research, and policy). This includes topics such as: legal advocacy, housing, foster care, domestic violence, immigration, education, special health care needs, health literacy, and many more. This is mostly done via Tuesday afternoon Social Pediatrics curriculum (see the “Curriculum” page).  You will also have the opportunity to work in mobile van units and in a school-based health center.