The University of California, Irvine and the Children’s Hospital of Orange County has an open position for a PGY4 (1st year fellowship position) for 2026-2027. We request that any interested physician directly contact Dr. Himala Kashmiri directly at hkashmiri@choc.org or by phone at 214-507-8887.
For further information, please refer to our website: https://choc.org/careers/residency-training-programs/uci-choc-pediatric-endocrinology-fellowship-program/
Program Overview
Our endocrine and diabetes program aims to prepare fellows for careers as leaders in clinical or academic medicine through an outstanding academic, professional, and collegial atmosphere.
We aim to provide the fellow with:
- Structured one-on-one mentoring to help guide their chosen career path
- Opportunities for conducting and presenting research (basic science, translational, clinical and educational) as well as quality improvement projects
- A collaborative culture that protects the fellow to ensure wellness and minimize “burnout” while creating resilience
- An experience to provide patient-centered, evidence-based, high quality and innovative care to patients and their families
The first-year fellow will have intensive clinical training focused on both outpatient and inpatient endocrine disorders, supervised by an attending physician from the division. Rotations will follow a 13-block template where the fellow will rotate every other week between the inpatient service and the outpatient clinics (total of 22 weeks of inpatient and 22 weeks of outpatient service). CHOC provides exposure to both common and exotic pathologies, making an optimal learning environment for our fellow. The fellow will be expected to become proficient in the diagnosis and management of common endocrine disorders, as well as become familiar with the psychosocial and ethical aspects of care for these patients. The large volume and broad range of endocrine pathology seen by CHOC endocrinologists ensures an optimal clinical experience for endocrine fellows.
During the first year, the fellow will also have 4 weeks total of protected research time to explore possible research topics and select a research mentor. Two of these four weeks of research will be spent at UCI introducing the fellow to the Islet program and providing basic education and experience on lab methodologies.
The second and third years are largely devoted to clinical or basic research with a mentor chosen by the fellow. During research time, the fellow will continue participating in their Continuity Clinic (1/2 day per week) and will participate in specialty clinics (1/2 day per week). In the second year, the fellow will have 12 non-consecutive weeks of inpatient service; in the third year it will be 8 non-consecutive weeks. Overall, research time in the second and third years will be 38 weeks/year. Our inpatient service is robust, and we typically have 10-15 patients through the consult and primary endocrine/diabetes service that we follow at any given time making for a highly educational inpatient experience.
The outpatient experience provides access to a high-volume center that treats children with a variety of endocrinopathies such as diabetes, disorders of growth, disorders of anterior pituitary gland, diabetes insipidus, thyroid disorders, disorders of calcium homeostasis, metabolic bone disease, adrenal gland disorders, endocrine neoplasia, and disorders of puberty. Throughout the three years of fellowship, the fellow will participate in the Endocrine Attending and Fellow Continuity clinics, as well rotate through various subspecialty clinics to allow exposure to a broad range of diagnoses and management styles. These specialty clinics include the Thyroid Cancer, Long-term Cancer Survivorship, Turner syndrome, ALD clinic, OI/bone clinic, Noonan Syndrome clinic, Obesity clinic, Disorder of Sex Development, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Klinefelter syndrome, Transgender, Red Cell, Prader-Willi Syndrome clinic, and Type 2 Diabetes clinics.
Research
In the first year, the fellow should concentrate on choosing a research project and mentor. Mentors are available at both UCI and CHOC, both in Pediatric Endocrinology and/or in collaboration with other subspecialists. In the second and third years, each fellow will have 38 weeks of scheduled research time per year.
As part of their training in research, the fellow will be expected to gain experience in study design, conducting hypothesis-driven research, laboratory methodology, statistical analysis, IRB preparation, and if applicable, grant preparation. Training in these topics will be included in the Fellow Core Curriculum.
Conferences and Teaching
- Journal Club: Fellow chooses and reviews, using evidence-based techniques, a recent journal article relevant to Endocrinology; once or twice yearly.
- Fellow Case Conference: Fellows bring challenging cases from their clinic to discuss with attending and other fellows. This is an opportunity to get management advice on their toughest patients as well as learn from other fellows’ cases and the perspectives of other attending physicians.
- Weekly division-wide conference, allowing an informal opportunity for any provider to present a challenging clinical case (inpatient, outpatient, or consults) to the group to get everyone’s input.
- Fellow Endocrine Board Review Conference
- Multidisciplinary Thyroid Tumor Board (with CHLA and also locally)
- M&M
- Opportunities also exist for senior fellows to present at lectures for other divisions, as well as outside hospitals as part of community outreach.
- Fellows are also expected to teach residents and medical students on the wards and in the outpatient clinics, as well as through Grand Rounds, Morning Report and noon conferences.
Children’s Hospital of Orange County
CHOC is an academic, community-based hospital that serves as the main site for training in the fellowship. It has 334 beds, including a 40+-bed PICU, a new state of the art Cardiac ICU, 72-bed NICU and separate Oncology and Neuroscience units. The training and education of medical students, residents and fellows has been a longstanding focus of CHOC. Each year, CHOC trains ~300 residents and fellows from ~40 different training programs, along with ~200 medical students.
How to Apply
Email hkashmiri@choc.org (Dr. Himala Kashmiri, program director).
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Deborah Liebold
Program Coordinator
UCI.CHOC.PedsEndo@choc.org
714-509-8866
