Newborn Care: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Newborn Nursery and Delivery Room

PL-1 year: Newborn Nursery

Interns rotate on both the well newborn hospitalist service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital or the Nursery Service at Boston Medical Center. Interns are responsible for the evaluation and management of healthy newborns with the help of nurses and lactation specialists, and under the guidance of an attending pediatrician. Interns also attend didactic lectures, discussion sessions and demonstrations that focus on care of the newborn.

PL1 and Supervisory Years: Neonatal ICU

Interns and residents rotate through the NICU at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Boston Medical Center (BMC).The BWH NICU is a 64-bed unit.  Interns work on one primary acute care team along with a fellow and attending.  They work primarily day shifts with one week of night float.   The BMC NICU is a 22-bed unit and the team consists of an attending neonatologist, one senior resident, one junior resident and two interns.

Besides caring for critically ill neonates, residents obtain extensive experience in the resuscitation and stabilization of newborns at high-risk deliveries. At both sites neonatal attendings are on site 24 hours per day to provide supervision and teaching. Residents participate in a comprehensive educational curriculum including daily lectures by attending neonatologists covering common neonatal problems, such as respiratory distress syndrome, necrotizing enterocolitis, hyperbilirubinemia, and nutrition. All residents are trained in the Neonatal Resuscitation Program during intern orientation and then re-certify during their PL-2 year.

During the junior year residents rotate through the BWH NICU in the Birth and Transition unit as the “DR1” delivery room resident – the first call to all deliveries requiring a pediatrician. The resident is responsible for attending deliveries with a NICU nurse and respiratory therapist for triaging newborns in the delivery room and well baby nursery.

Residents in both years recruit newborns from their newborn rotations to their continuity patient panels.