The State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn, formerly the Downstate Medical Center, is among the largest health science centers in the United States, and it is the largest of four such centers within the 64 unit State University of New York public higher education system. The Health Science Center at Brooklyn, an amalgam of facilities occupying 13 acres in the geographic center of Brooklyn, in fulfilling its mandate is a major provider of medical education, research in the medical sciences, and clinical care for the communities of Brooklyn and Staten Island.
The Center consists of the College of Medicine, Health Related Professions (including Nurse-Midwifery, Physician Assistants, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Health Administration, Radiological Sciences), Nursing and the School of Graduate Studies. Overall, the Center has a student body of 1,600, a full-time, part-time and voluntary faculty of nearly 3,000, and support staff of 3,000.
The Health Science Center facilities expanded in January 1992 with the opening of the new Health Science Education Building. Within the new building are state-of-the-art conference rooms, classrooms, laboratories, a 500 seat auditorium, and the new Medical Research Library of Brooklyn occupying three floors of the facility.
The Medical Research Library is one of the largest medical libraries in the United States, with over 250,000 volumes and 1200 current periodical titles in its active collection. The library is automated with an on-line catalog, MEDLINE literature search, CINDAL, and the Bibliographic Retrieval Services' 150 databases. Articles not held by the library can be obtained via Inter-Library Loan. Additional features include a collection of video tapes, slides, audio cassettes and multimedia. The library also supports an array of on-line web based resources including full-text journals, textbooks and services such as MD-Consult.
The Health Science Center also has a Scientific/Academic Computing Center and a department of Computer and Information Services. The Center's Student Center Building provides numerous recreational facilities available to housestaff. These include a gymnasium, weight room, indoor olympic swimming pool, sauna, racketball courts, tennis courts, meeting rooms, a pub and a discount theater ticket office. Also housed in the Student Center Building is the medical school bookstore where most texts and medical instruments are in stock or easily ordered.
Kings County Hospital Center, located across the street from the Health Science Center and University Hospital of Brooklyn, is a large general acute-care municipal hospital. Situated on 43 acres and once containing 24 buildings, Kings County is the major provider of health services in the Borough of Brooklyn. It is a designated Trauma Center with eight ICUs and approximately 600 beds accepting 35,000 admissions annually. The pediatric medical and pediatric surgical services occupy approximately 50 beds, there is a 7 bed PICU and there are 50 bassinets in the newborn service with an additional 40 for special care and intensive care needs. There are approximately 2400 pediatric admissions, 2000 term deliveries, 350 PICU and 500 NICU admissions to Kings County annually. The pediatric outpatient service (including the pediatric emergency room, subspecialty clinics, continuity clinics and walk-in services) sees an average of 350 patients per day and over 100,000 patients per year.
At Kings County, all patients are service patients, with the house staff assuming responsibility for their care under the supervision and tutelage of the attending faculty. A modest departmental library and computer with a clinical database is maintained at the site of the pediatric inpatient office at Kings County. All inpatient and outpatient areas of KCHC are linked by computer to all pathology and laboratory services for ordering and retrieving results of studies. Imaging procedure results may be viewed throughout the hospital via a PACS system. All physician orders are entered into the medical information system. The pharmacy is robotized. All pediatric outpatient medical records are electronic. Specimen transport is facilitated by a pneumatic tube system. Patient rooms have wall mounted computer terminals for staff point of care to the medical information system. All computer workstations have internet accessibility and local network clinical resources. The pediatric service at Kings County Hospital has a unit for children above 5 years of age and adolescents, a unit for the care of infants and toddlers with several step down and several isolation beds, and a state of the art PICU. The spectrum of patients admitted to these units span the entire range of acute illnesses, trauma and exacerbations of chronic diseases seen in children. There is a ultra modern neonatal intensive and special care unit and a normal newborn service. An adolescent section opened in July 2002.
The pediatric outpatient service at Kings County Hospital is quite active. There is a pediatric Acute Care and Emergency Area that is separate from and functions independently of the adult Emergency Room. In addition, there are areas for routine follow-up and preventive care, resident continuity clinics, subspecialty clinics, and the Pediatric Resource Center for the care of children at high risk.
Kings County Hospital is undergoing construction of a new facilites. The new state of the art hospital inpatient tower was occupied in December 2001. All medical and surgical outpatient services are scheduled to relocate to a newly renovated ambulatory services pavilion over the next 1-2 years. A new diagnostic and treatment building for Emergency Services, operating rooms, diagnostic and therapeutic radiology, pathology and labor and delivery is under construction and expected to be completed by Spring 2004.
University Hospital of Brooklyn (UHB) is a 376-bed teaching and research hospital with the latest in medical equipment. Approximately 60 of its beds are utilized by pediatrics, including a 7-bed pediatric ICU, 4 bed step-down unit, a 25 bassinet level III neonatal ICU and a 3 bassinet transitional care nursery. The hospital is the major tertiary care center for the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island with referrals for pediatric surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, renal transplantation, neurosurgery, neonatal intensive care, and all other pediatric subspecialties. The Children’s Hospital at Downstate has about 1700 pediatric admissions and 2000 newborn deliveries annually. The pediatric outpatient services at Downstate see nearly 50,000 scheduled and acute general pediatric and subspecialty patients per year.
The UHB teaching program encompasses both general service patients and the private patients of full time and voluntary faculty members. Patients are admitted for endoscopy, bronchoscopy, diagnostic and interventional catheterization, oncologic evaluation, and all other modalities of pediatric diagnostic and therapeutic management. The pediatric inpatient services at University Hospital consists of a general pediatric medical unit, an intensive care and step-down unit, and a neonatal intensive care unit. At UHB there are outpatient units for hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, and hypertransfusion. In addition, the pediatric outpatient department handles about 20,000 visits per year, mostly subspecialty patient visits plus a general pediatric service for diagnostic problems, well child preventive care and guidance. UHB is physically adjacent to the medical school. The Department of Pediatrics' offices are located in UHB, in close proximity to the inpatient units, and contain a departmental library.
The Children's Hospital at Downstate has a very active Child and Family Life Program based in an attractive new contemporary Child Life Center. The PICU is currently undergoing a renovation. It is anticipated that all inpatient and most outpatient services involved in the care of children including laboratory testing, respiratory care, social service, nutrition, patient education, schooling, admissions, etc. will be centralized on the Children's Hospital at Downstate site at UHB. Construction of a new multimillion dollar NICU facility is expected to begin soon.
The Staten Island University Hospital-North Division is a modern hospital with 471 beds. It is a voluntary, nonprofit, acute care medical facility located in a suburban setting in the borough of Staten Island. Designed to offer an ideal environment for medical education and patient care, the hospital is equipped with the most modern diagnostic and therapeutic services, 23 classrooms and a computerized library.
The Department of Pediatrics includes a 20 bed inpatient unit, designated Intensive Care and Adolescent Care areas. The Nursery, occupies 38 bassinets and offers both regular, high risk and intensive care. The outpatient division includes an emergency service, general pediatric and high risk clinics, and many subspecialty clinics. Staten Island Hospital – North has about 2200 pediatric admissions, 3000 newborn deliveries and 40,000 acute and scheduled outpatient visits per year.
Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) is an integrated part of the SUNY HSCB General Pediatrics Residency Program since July 1990. Residents are assigned to rotate there approximately 2-3 months in each year of the program. At SIUH, the residents are generally assigned to the outpatient department for at least one of the months (ambulatory clinics or practices in general pediatrics or subspecialties, community pediatric practice sites or emergency/acute care). The other months are spent on the inpatient services (general pediatric ward or term nursery or high risk nursery) and/or to subspecialty experiences in Adolescent Medicine, Behavior and Development, Cardiology or Endocrinology. SIUH gives the residents a necessary experience in a private, nonprofit hospital, a community based setting with a typical middle class population and the opportunity to interact with a large number of general pediatricians in practice. Appropriate attending physicians maintain the ultimate teaching and medico-legal responsibilities for their patients, while providing residents with extensive clinical experience. A free shuttle bus service provides easy and convenient transportation between the Children's Medical Center main campus and Staten Island University Hospital - North.
Lenox Hill Hospital, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is a 652-bed, fully accredited, acute care hospital and a major teaching affiliate. Founded in 1857, the Hospital has earned a national reputation for providing the highest quality care, training new physicians, contributing to progress in research, and offering innovative community outreach programs. Nationally and internationally renowned, Lenox Hill Hospital's medical and surgical specialists are a respected resource for new developments in medicine, innovative diagnostic and treatment procedures, and technological advances. As a result, patients come to Lenox Hill Hospital from the greater New York area, other states, and countries around the world.
Lenox Hill Hospital, an affiliate of the Pediatrics Residency Program since July 1999, offers our residents exposure to a drastically different patient population from what they are accustomed to on the Clarkson Avenue campus or at Staten Island Hospital. They have the opportunity to care for a different socio-economic and ethic mix of patients with a very different spectrum of diseases (e.g. cystic fibrosis, eating disorders, high risk deliveries due to in-vitro fertilization in older women), types of intervention (e.g. sports medicine and corrective surgery, plastic surgery, cochlear implants), support needs and parental expectations. Furthermore, the residents have the opportunity to interact with a highly skilled, dedicated, education-oriented faculty and a cohort of private pediatricians (approximately 80) of exceptional quality, training and experience. There is a particular focus on medical education, teaching, EBM, critical review of the literature and professional development for life-long learning.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, an internationally recognized research and patient care facility devoted to oncologic disorders, has been an affiliated program since before 1985. Specializing in the latest treatment protocols, Sloan-Kettering offers patients the state-of-the-art in cancer therapy. Our pediatric residents rotating at Sloan-Kettering for one month during their second year manage the many patients with rare or complex neoplastic disease and are supervised by the medical scientists who direct the treatment. In addition to patient care, the physician scientists at Sloan-Kettering are engaged in active research in molecular and cell biology, immunology and all other fields related to the understanding of neoplastic disease, its treatment and cure. This is an experience in state of the art care of the pediatric cancer patient and exposure to scientists on the forefront of molecular, cellular and immunology research
