Frequently Asked Questions

The breadth of clinical experiences available to our fellows, the flexibility of our curriculum to allow for extensive elective experience especially in the second year and the collegial relationships enjoyed by fellows and faculty all make this a very attractive program in which to train. Our location in our nation's capital has allowed for unique clinical, research and advocacy experiences that would not be possible elsewhere.

Our institution also allows for a unique training environment for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellows.

Serving the nation’s children for 150 years, Children’s National Hospital is the only exclusive provider of acute pediatric care in the Washington metropolitan area. The main hospital, known as the Sheikh Zayed Campus for Advanced Children’s Medicine, features 323 beds, 54 of which are level IIIC NICU bassinets; a Level I pediatric trauma center which serves three states; and a critical care transport program via ambulance, helicopter, and fixed-wing airplane. Children's National serves as the regional referral center for pediatric emergency, trauma, cancer, cardiac and critical care as well as neonatology, orthopaedic surgery, neurology and neurosurgery. As a non-profit pediatric care provider, Children’s National has a mission to serve all children in its service area regardless of ability to pay.

As a result, our fellows care for a clinically and socioeconomically diverse group of patients and families from all over the region and country who see Children’s National as their medical home. Fellows have broad exposure to both “bread and butter” child and adolescent psychiatry and to unique clinical presentations only encountered at a tertiary referral center. The availability of pediatric subspecialty experts enhances fellows’ clinical training and opportunities to collaborate with other specialties.

There’s an elective for that! For fellows who enter training with a distinct career path or interest area in mind, we help connect you with mentors, provide time and space to pursue your interests and help you find a path to your eventual career choice. For those with more general interests, we can help you create an educational program that allows you to sample from a rich buffet of offerings, enhancing your ability to care for children and families and participate in research, advocacy and education.

Graduates of our program have gone on to a wide variety of positions. In the past few years, positions have included:

• Outpatient psychiatry in several multispecialty group practices
• Outpatient psychiatry in community mental health centers
• Private practice
• Collaborative mental health director
• Inpatient medical director
• Research faculty
• Clinical faculty at Children’s National Hospital and other academic institutions