Introduction Children with medical complexity (CMC) represent a distinct pediatric group that impacts medical educators, healthcare professionals, the healthcare system, families, and society at large. However, standardized training for pediatric hospitalist fellows is not currently established, and the influence of implementing a complex-care curriculum aligned with a targeted clinical rotation has yet to be studied.Methods This study used qualitative analysis to determine the outcomes of a program for pediatric hospital medicine fellows at a children’s specialty hospital from 2022-2024. A complex-care-focused curriculum was developed and aligned with four week-long clinical rotations.Results Participants included seven pediatric hospital medicine fellows from three different fellowship programs. Our first key finding was participants’ newfound appreciation for envisioning complex care as a tapestry, recognizing patterns beyond individual threads of illness. Second, the backdrop of a specialty hospital setting populated exclusively with CMC permitted a more in-depth understanding of the problems that confront CMC and how to manage those problems.Discussion These findings support the inclusion of dedicated post-acute inpatient complex-care rotations in pediatric hospital medicine fellowships. Our findings can be used to advocate for changes in fellowship programming to support the development of similar programs, with our program serving as a model.
Ashe et al. (Mon,) studied this question.