Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics Fellowship Program

Interested Applicants Welcome Letter (pdf)

Interested Applicants - Downloadable Application (pdf)

The Section of Developmental and Behavior Pediatrics (DBP) within the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Chicago is currently in its fifth year as an ACGME-accredited Fellowship in DBP.  All faculty members are diplomats in DBP (or are BE and awaiting the next administration of the biennial DBP boards), and Drs. Smith (the PD) and Msall (the Chief) are also diplomats in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (NDD).

Clinically, the Section of DBP provides interdisciplinary, comprehensive care for children with motor, cognitive, communicative, and learning disorders.  The section offers comprehensive neurodevelopmental assessments including visual and auditory assessments in pre-verbal children, gross motor, fine motor, and oral motor assessments, communication, cognitive, educational, and family assessments.  Along with work in the University of Chicago DCAM clinics, the section works at several collaborating institutions:

1. LaRabida Children’s Hospital
2. The Erikson Institute
3. The Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education
4. The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School
5. Illinois Masonic Pediatric Development Center
6. Beethoven School Clinic

Fellows become members of the interdisciplinary teams at all of these sites, with the Beethoven school site serving as the core Fellows’ Continuity Clinic location.  All fellows have call responsibilities (coverage of the virtual DBP 24/7 beeper), but this is at-home call (no in-house overnight call) and each fellow has an increasing amount of protected time to pursue their scholarly activities over the course of the three-year fellowship.  Although each fellow’s schedule is customized to their learning objectives, a generic three-year schedule (by day of week: blocks for rotations are typically six months) is as follows:

Scholarship is expected of all fellows, and there is a strong supporting program to assist each fellow to reach their scholarship goals.  There is a standing Scholarship Oversight committee, comprised of Michael Msall, M.D., the Section Chief, Kenneth Alexander, M.D., Ph.D., an accomplished clinical researcher, and Nancy Schwartz, Ph.D., an accomplished basic science researcher.  Both of the fellows who have completed the program to date have successfully submitted an NIH grant application: one is currently funded fully under a 5-year K23 award and the other is waiting scoring from the committee.  In addition, a current third-year fellow has received funding from a local granting program to support her collection of pilot data (which will lead to a national project). 

The Program Director, Dr. Peter J. Smith, is not only a rising leader in the field of DBP, but also in the field of medical education and bioethics (CV).  Through his leadership, the University of Chicago has not only developed the only DBP Fellowship in the regions, but also developed an expanding network of collaborators in academics (within the University of Chicago as well as other institutions, in the community (e.g. CoACH Care Center), and in allied organizations (e.g., EDOPC project of the AAP ). 

For general questions and application materials please contact:

Peter J. Smith, M.D.
Fellowship Program Director
The University of Chicago - Department of Pediatrics
Woodlawn Social Services Center                                                                                   950 East 61st Street - SSC
Chicago, Illinois 60637
773.702.3095
psmith2@peds.bsd.uchicago.edu