Clinical Experience

This is the primary teaching service of the Adolescent Medicine Fellowship and forms the backbone of the subspecialty training in outpatient adolescent medicine. Fellows have their own continuity clinic here. Fellows provide specialty consultative care to adolescents 10-21 years old who are referred to the Adolescent and Young Adult Specialty Clinic for a variety of issues including reproductive health services, menstrual concerns, mood disorders, disordered eating, substance use, acne management, and complex medical issues complicated by behavioral health concerns. Our main clinic is in the heart of Kansas City and serves as a Title X clinic for the surrounding community, allowing us to provide confidential reproductive health care for adolescent and young adult patients. We also have several satellite locations in the surrounding suburbs.

Fellows have continuity clinic here, working with a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, nurses, child psychologists, child psychiatrists, dieticians, and social work to provide consultative evaluations and ongoing outpatient care for patients with eating disorders.

At the beginning of fellowship, fellows complete a block rotation on the Eating Disorder Inpatient Consultation Service. After that, fellows are on call an average of every four weeks.  During their call weekend, fellows are responsible for providing phone consultation to inpatient and outpatient providers on eating disorders and other adolescent issues. During their call weekend, fellows round on patients in the hospital who have been followed by the Eating Disorder Inpatient Consultation service during the week, as well as evaluate new consults.

Fellows perform subdermal contraceptive implant placements and removals and intrauterine device placements and removals. By the end of this rotation, fellows are competent to perform these procedures independently with during their continuity clinics.

Fellows work with pediatric and adolescent gynecologists to learn how to evaluate and manage complex gynecologic disease in adolescent patients including endometriosis and anatomic abnormalities.

Fellows work with a multidisciplinary team of providers including how to evaluate and manage adolescents and young adults with symptoms of orthostatic intolerance including patients with dysautonomia, POTS, NMH, chronic fatigue, and non-cardiac syncope/near syncope.

Fellows work with clinical child psychologists to consolidate the skills learned in Psychology Didactics and gain practical experience in behavioral intervention and motivational interviewing of older school-aged children and adolescents in a clinic setting. Specific training in motivational interviewing is provided as part of this experience. 

Fellows provide medical care to unhoused and runaway youth staying at the Synergy House emergency youth shelter.

Fellows work in a pediatric resident continuity clinic, precepting residents for adolescent and young adult patients while under direct supervision from an attending physician who can provide real-time feedback on clinical teaching techniques.

Fellows will continue to have their continuity clinic throughout the full year.

Fellows will have 6 months of continuity clinic.

Fellows will have a block rotation that allows them to learn the basics of obesity medicine followed by a continuity clinic.

Fellows continue to take call on average every 4 weeks.

Fellows spend time with psychiatrists at Children's Mercy as well as Crittenton Children's Center, a community inpatient psychiatric unit for children and adolescents, to learn to evaluate psychiatric concerns and manage acute and chronic presentations of these concerns. 

Fellows rotate in the University of Kansas Health System’s Addiction Psychiatry medication assistance treatment program to evaluate and treat teens and young adults with opioid use disorders.

Fellows work at the clinic associated with Jackson County Juvenile Detention Center, which provides temporary custody for juveniles accused of conduct subject to the jurisdiction of the Court who require a restricted environment for their own or the community's protection while pending legal action.

Fellows work with HIV and infectious diseases specialists at Children's Mercy and learn about community resources for adolescents and young adults who have HIV.

Fellows engage in elective clinical activities to round out their fellowship training and to prepare for their future careers. Fellows may elect to spend more time on one of the previous rotations or engage in other training experiences. Examples include, but are certainly not limited to, dermatology, pain management, rheumatology, endocrinology, clinical pharmacogenomics.

Fellows continue to see patients in their continuity clinic throughout their final year of fellowship.

Fellows work with sports medicine physicians and athletic trainers to learn evaluation and management of non-operative orthopedic injuries in the adolescent age group.

Fellows work with psychologists and sleep medicine physicians to feel comfortable evaluating sleep disorders in the adolescent age group.

Fellows work with headache specialists at Children’s Mercy to evaluate and manage headaches in adolescents using pharmacologic, behavioral, and alternative medicine treatment modalities.

Fellows engage in elective clinical activities to round out the fellowship training and to prepare for future careers. Fellows may elect to spend more time on one of the previous rotations from fellowship or engage in other training experiences available at Children's Mercy.