Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship

Welcome and thank you for your interest in the Corewell Health Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital/Michigan State University Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship. Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital has made a national name for itself in the world of pediatric quality improvement and patient safety. We are located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, one of the most enjoyable, fastest-growing, and most affordable cities in the Midwest.

The fellowship offers complete clinical, educational, and scholarly programs in our state-of-the-art, freestanding children’s hospital. We hope the following information is helpful to you, and thank you for considering us for your fellowship training. If you are an internal medicine/pediatrics resident, we can offer you time as an adult hospitalist during your fellowship elective time. Several of our hospitalists are internal medicine/pediatrics trained and continue to work in the adult world. Please do not hesitate to inquire more about this!

Congratulations on choosing to pursue a fellowship in the wonderful world of pediatric hospital medicine! As you think about what is important to you in a fellowship, we would like to highlight a few reasons the program at Corewell Health Helen DeVos Children's Hospital (part of Corewell Health Grand Rapids Hospitals) might be just what you are looking for:

• Our daily commitment to fellowship educational and programmatic excellence
• The strong QI and patient safety initiatives that drive patient care
• Our incredible institutional and programmatic work to reduce power gradients and nurture the culture of collegial teamwork with colleagues who feel more like family members

Excellence

Our fellowship program was one of only four in the U.S. to receive initial certification by the ACGME in January 2020. As a fellow here, you will receive a robust didactic curriculum in research, QI, Patient Safety, Process Improvement, and all pediatric hospital medicine core content topics. Our pediatrics and internal medicine/pediatrics residencies have a total of 24 residents/year along with two child neurology residents/year in their first two years. This affords fellows great team leadership, mentorship, and teaching opportunities. We have nearly 20 specialized fellowship electives for you to choose from, and we continue to add more each year based on our fellows’ interests! We are affiliated with Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, which provides regular medical student teaching and mentorship opportunities. In fact, after passing boards, you will be given an academic title with MSU-CHM! Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital has been in the U.S. News and World Report Top 50 for multiple successive years, including 2024-2025, and has over 300 pediatric physicians in 50 different specialties. Finally, our hospitalist faculty group is over two dozen members strong including six nurse practitioners, with diverse clinical and research interests including newborn nursery and inpatient rehabilitation clinical work.

QI/patient safety/process improvement

Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital’s vision is to be one of the top children’s hospitals in the nation and we currently rank second in Michigan and #15 in the Midwest. This drive for excellence has created a significant culture around quality/process improvement and patient safety. Our fellows have been integrated into this culture, and in only seven years of our fellowship, they have made a meaningful impact within our hospital system and community while also being recognized on both the state and national levels. These projects include improvement around interpretation services, addiction medicine, and neurosurgical co-management. We are also lucky to have the Corewell Health Director of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety as one of our pediatric hospital medicine partners, so we have easy access to QI and patient safety education along with mentorship for QI projects!

Culture

Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital is the home of the “Call Me Bob” campaign, whereby all staff are encouraged to call each other by their first names. This has reduced the power gradient and sense of hierarchy that exists in many healthcare settings. It allows for better teamwork, more collaboration,n and a sense that work is a great place to be. We have robust initiatives in wellness and diversity that exist not just in the fellowship but across the institution as well. If you were a fly on the wall here on any day, you would see the sense of joy, cohesion, energy, and fun that exists in our group, the fellowship program, and the hospital. Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital is a great place to be!

Finally, while some of you have likely never visited Grand Rapids, we completely love our city. It truly is a “hidden gem”, consistently ranked as one of the most affordable places to live in Michigan, Best Places to Live for Quality of Life, and so many more!

We look forward to meeting you virtually and sharing all that our fellowship, hospital, and city have to offer!

Sincerely,
Brett Leingang, MD (Program director), and Sheila Waslawski, MD (Associate program director)