Suggestions for NICU fellow

[ped1493]

So it’s been 1.5 months since the start of my NICU fellowship and it’s been extremely overwhelming. It’s such a different world from pediatrics as such and feels like three years of peds training did not help much. Matched into a really busy fellowship program and for most part I’m happy with my decision. I just feel completely lost when it comes to knowledge base. I am postponing my peds board because unfortunately we don’t have any downtime given to study and our 1st year in fellowship is heavily frontloaded with 8 service months (excluding orientation month where we did calls too). Thought I’d rather give it next year confidently when we have more research time than this year.
Can folks here give me some words of wisdom (without being judgemental, please) on how to navigate being a fellow and build up on knowledge. What resources did you use and how did it help you? Any books to read daily ? Any video lectures?
Sorry if I sound really bogged down. Just feeling lost.

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[SurfingDoctor]

Fellowship is supposed to be busy and its front loaded by intention. Your learning is by being hands on and thinking through problems with attendings and senior fellows as people to run ideas by. When you aren't in the hospital, you learn by reading about specific or challenging cases, so you can get some foundational knowledge that supports or reinforces your first-hand experience.

It's more of an apprenticeship as opposed to residency where people just expected you to write note and they force fed you the rest.

 

[doodle_doc]

So it’s been 1.5 months since the start of my NICU fellowship and it’s been extremely overwhelming. It’s such a different world from pediatrics as such and feels like three years of peds training did not help much. Matched into a really busy fellowship program and for most part I’m happy with my decision. I just feel completely lost when it comes to knowledge base. I am postponing my peds board because unfortunately we don’t have any downtime given to study and our 1st year in fellowship is heavily frontloaded with 8 service months (excluding orientation month where we did calls too). Thought I’d rather give it next year confidently when we have more research time than this year.
Can folks here give me some words of wisdom (without being judgemental, please) on how to navigate being a fellow and build up on knowledge. What resources did you use and how did it help you? Any books to read daily ? Any video lectures?
Sorry if I sound really bogged down. Just feeling lost.

Starting fellowship is a weird adjustment because it's such a different beast compared with residency! I'm now in my third year and still have a lot of days of feeling insecure/overwhelmed by how much there is to learn considering my NICU experience in residency was super inadequate. You're definitely not alone!

A couple of educational resources I like so far:
Med Ed on the Go: check out the Neo Flip classroom section and the ONTPD online with experts lectures. Neo Flip in particular has some fairly short videos on a few different topics that are easily digestible

If you're a podcast person at all, I recommend the Incubator (especially the journal club episodes) and NICU Grad. NICU Grad hasn't had new episodes in a while but their old episodes cover some high yield NICU topics. The Incubator also does a board review series that is subscription-based but I think does a free episode for each topic they cover

 

[Oso]

Another 3rd year fellow here. It's a steep learning curve for sure. I found that trying to quickly read up on topics while on service and then reading more in depth about it afterwards was helpful.

For the quick on service learning, I would read Up to date, a handbook like Gomella, or skim a Neoreviews article. For more in depth, I like Neoreviews and the book Klaus & Fanaroff's care of the high risk neonate (which you can access through Clinical Key). I feel I've really solidified my basic knowledgebase through those two resources. If you really want in depth info, then you can go to Fanaroff & Martin, but I would only do that for really select topics at this point.

I can't learn through listening to podcasts, but I do enjoy the incubator for general listening pleasure

 

[oldbearprofessor]

So it’s been 1.5 months since the start of my NICU fellowship and it’s been extremely overwhelming. It’s such a different world from pediatrics as such and feels like three years of peds training did not help much. Matched into a really busy fellowship program and for most part I’m happy with my decision. I just feel completely lost when it comes to knowledge base. I am postponing my peds board because unfortunately we don’t have any downtime given to study and our 1st year in fellowship is heavily frontloaded with 8 service months (excluding orientation month where we did calls too). Thought I’d rather give it next year confidently when we have more research time than this year.
Can folks here give me some words of wisdom (without being judgemental, please) on how to navigate being a fellow and build up on knowledge. What resources did you use and how did it help you? Any books to read daily ? Any video lectures?
Sorry if I sound really bogged down. Just feeling lost.

As a first year fellow, the advice to read UptoDate, and more clinically oriented texts like Gomella and several similar ones is good advice. Also focus on getting a lot of your knowledge as experiential knowledge from everyone around you. Learn TPN from the pharmacists and dietitians, learn vent management tricks from RTs in addition to the usual attending rounds, etc. Real Fanaroff and Martin level learning can wait until later. Also, use your in-service scores in pedi as a guide to preparation for pedi boards. If you were above average as a PL-3 you'll likely do well with basic studying, if not you may benefit from more intense review.