UCI-CHOC Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship Program
The University of California, Irvine and CHOC will accept applications through ERAS for the UCI/CHOC pediatric critical care fellowship program on July 1, 2026, for fellowship positions to start July 5, 2027.
CHOC has a long history of training superb pediatric critical care fellows first through its 20+ year history with Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and now with its academic affiliation with UC Irvine, established in 2019.
With a 30-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and a 24-bed Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) that jointly has over 2,000+ admissions per year, CHOC can provide pediatric critical care fellows with a broad range of clinical exposure.
According to Virtual Pediatric Systems, LLC (VPS), a national collaborative of over 200 ICUs, when compared to a cohort of 21 other similar PICUs, the CHOC PICU had:
- A similar Pediatric Index of Mortality 3 (PIM3) standardized mortality ratio.
- A statistically significantly lower Standardized Length of Stay Ratio.
- A similar percentage of unscheduled readmissions within 24 hours.
The cohort included those PICUs (like CHOC’s) which are associated with a medical university, have a fellowship training program, have 24/7 attending coverage, are in a primary accredited pediatric teaching hospital and have an accredited pediatric residency program.
Contact Us
Program Coordinator
Terrie-May Ruiz
[email protected]
Phone: 714-509-4976
Program Leadership
Juliette Hunt, MD
Fellowship Program Director,
Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship Program
Robert B. Kelly, MD
Associate Program Director,
Director of Research and Academics
Associate Division Chief, Critical Care
Philip Suh, MD
Associate Program Director, Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship Program
Justin Yeh, MD
Division Chief, Critical Care
Program Overview
The pediatric critical care fellowship program aims to prepare fellow physicians for careers as leaders in clinical and academic medicine in a supportive, rigorous and collegial atmosphere.
CHOC had previously been the primary clinical site for the UCLA Harbor/CHOC pediatric critical care fellowship program for over two decades. In 2019, UCI and CHOC launched an affiliation as a separate pediatric critical care medicine fellowship accredited by the ACGME. The UCI/CHOC pediatric critical care is now thriving with a full complement of fellows and proudly graduated it’s first class of PICU intensivists in June 2023.
CHOC PICU faculty and staff are heavily involved in all aspects of the trainees’ clinical and research experiences. CHOC faculty are known for their teaching, clinical and research efforts nationally.
The UCI/CHOC Children’s fellows receive a well-rounded and complete experience with core rotations in CHOC’s PICU and CVICU, as well as the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’ cardiothoracic intensive care unit.
In addition to the core rotation in these ICUs, the UCI/CHOC pediatric critical care fellowship program offers fellows the following unique experiences:
CHOC has a very experienced and successful vascular access team, skilled in the placement of PICCs, peripheral IV lines and arterial lines using ultrasound. This team has experience teaching fellow physicians how to successfully use ultrasound for vascular access. The program includes a two-week rotation in the fellow physician’s first year of training.
CHOC has an active telemedicine program and a very busy air and ground inter-facility transport program. These programs allow the faculty and fellows to communicate visually and audibly with multiple hospitals in the community to help guide the care of critically ill children at their sites. The fellows will be involved in telemedicine consultations during their ICU service months, providing guidance for the management of critically ill children under the supervision of the critical care faculty. The fellows will also accompany the transport team for critical care transports.
CHOC has an active Innovation Institute. The Sharon Disney Lund Medical Intelligence and Innovation Institute (Mi4) at CHOC Children’s is a unique and first-of-its-kind institute that creates, focuses and executes projects in the areas of intelligence and innovation in pediatric medicine. These two interrelated disciplines, extremely limited in development in the pediatric realm, hold great promise to change the trajectory of pediatric care around the world. Mi4 aims to foster robust developments in artificial intelligence methodologies, as well as innovative advances in emerging areas such as genomic medicine, regenerative medicine, robotics, nanotechnology and medical applications/devices. Mi4 is dedicated to empowering data intelligence and medical innovation at CHOC and driving innovation leadership in the international pediatrics community. Fellow physicians in our program will be exposed to Mi4 and have the opportunity to partake in an innovation project during their training if they choose. Learn more about the Mi4 here.
UCI Medical Center, located five minutes from CHOC Children’s Hospital, continues to be a regional referral center for pediatric burn patients. CHOC’s critical care faculty provides critical care consultation to the burn team at UCI and provides procedural sedation for these patients. The fellow physicians will have the option to accompany the critical care faculty during their first year of training to allow exposure to pediatric burn patients and to gain experience with procedural sedation.
The fellows will also have access to the UC Irvine School of Medicine Medical Education Simulation Center. This is a 3,000-square-foot state-of-the-art medical simulation center that provides telemedicine and simulation-based educational programs. The Center has a full-scale operating room, an emergency room trauma bay, and a critical care unit to be used for simulation. CHOC is also in the planning phase of constructing an in-situ simulation suite within the hospital. A member of CHOC’s critical care faculty will be the director of this simulation center, and we plan to utilize this center as an added educational resource for fellow physicians once constructed.
Research
Training in research and completion of a scholarly project is an ACGME requirement and will be expected of each fellow. Fellows will have 16 months of protected time over the course of their 3 years of training to complete their project. In line with ACGME requirements, each fellow physician will have a Scholarly Oversight Committee that will help guide fellow physicians and monitor progress on research projects.
Research mentors are available at both UCI and CHOC, both in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine and/or in collaboration with other clinicians and scientists. Fellows will be expected to present their research at an appropriate conference and/or submit their work for publication prior to the completion of their training.
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 Fellows Core Curriculum.
Our Hospitals
University of California, Irvine
UCI provides extensive, high-quality education and clinical training, with 560 full-time faculty members and more than 1300 volunteer faculty members from 26 clinical departments. UCI sponsors a multitude of innovative and highly productive research programs. In addition to its adult programs, UCI serves as the sponsor for residencies in Pediatrics, Child Neurology, Combined Pediatrics/Anesthesia, and Medical Genetics, as well as fellowships in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine, Pediatric Pulmonology, Pediatric Endocrinology, Pediatric Infectious Disease, Pediatric Urology, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
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 30-bed PICU, 24-bed Cardiac ICU, 72-bed NICU and separate Oncology and Neuroscience units. CHOC’s ED is a Level I pediatric trauma center. CHOC also operates primary care and specialty clinics throughout the county. The hospital serves about 3+ million patients over 4 counties.
The training and education of medical students, residents and fellows has been a longstanding focus of CHOC. Each year, CHOC trains about 290 residents and fellows from 38 different training programs, along with 190 medical students.
Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles
A rotation in the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit (CTICU), at CHLA will allow our fellows in their third year of fellowship adequate exposure to solid organ transplant and to enhance their exposure to Cardiovascular surgical patients as well. The faculty has extensive experience working with trainees with knowledge and understanding of the ACGME requirements, supervision expectations, and goals and objectives of the rotation. They are committed to the teaching mission.
Curriculum
Mondays
- Cardiac Conference (twice weekly)
- Cardiac M&M (once a month)
- Medical Intelligence and Innovation Institute (MI3) meetings (once a month)
Tuesdays
- Transport M&M (every other month)
Wednesdays
- Cardiac Conference (twice weekly)
- Radiology rounds with Radiologist (weekly)
- Resident noon PICU lecture (weekly)
Thursdays
- Case Conference (weekly)
- Fellow specific conferences (weekly) including Evidence Based Medicine/ Journal Club, Professor Core Lecture Series, Physiology talks, Fellow led Core Topic lectures and research presentations
- CHOC Fellow-wide Core curriculum: including topics on research methodology and analysis, ethics, professionalism, leadership, well-being, etc. (once month)
Friday
- Fellow Board Review course (quarterly)
- PICU M&M (once a month)
- Ultrasound and simulations (once a month)
- ECLS case presentation (once a month)
How to Apply
Our fellowship program participates in the National Residency Match Program (NRMP)
Applications are accepted through the Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS)
Current Fellows
Arunava Sarma, MD – PGY 7
Class of 2026
Residency: Tulane/Ochsner New Orleans, LA
Medical School: Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California
Elyzabeth Amador, MD – PGY 6
Class of 2026
Residency: University of Maryland Children’s Hospital
Medical School: St. George’s University School of Medicine Grenada
Erin Wainwright, MD – PGY 6
Class of 2026
Residency: Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles
Medical School: Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University
Daniel Buchen, MD – PGY 5
Class of 2027
Residency: Orlando Health Pediatric Residency at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children
Medical School: University of Florida College of Medicine
Mojdeh Habibi Zoham, MD – PGY 5
Class of 2027
Residency: New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital
Medical School: Tehran University of Medicine Sciences School of Medicine Iran
Alexa Modrell, MD – PGY 5
Class of 2027
Residency: Phoenix Children’s
Medical School: Creighton University School of Medicine
Marielle Beamesderfer, MD – PGY 4
Class of 2028
Residency: UC Irvine/Children’s Hospital of Orange County
Medical School: Loma Linda University School of Medicine
Koustubh Kondapalli, MD – PGY 4
Class of 2028
Residency: Phoenix Children’s
Medical School: University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson
Haley Palaganas, MD – PGY 4
Class of 2028
Residency: UCI School or Medicine/CHOC Children’s Hospital of Orange County
Medical School: University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine
Graduates
Ancilla Rompala, MD
Class of 2023
4th year advanced fellowship: Lurie Children’s In Cardiac ICU
Current Position/Institution: Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, NV
Pavana Sreenivasan, MD
Class of 2023
Current Position/Institution: OSF Children’s Hospital in Illinois
Philip Suh, MD
Class of 2023
Current Position/Institution: Pediatric Critical Care Attending at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC)
Allison Berryhill, MD
Class of 2024
4th year advanced fellowship: Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) in Cardiac ICU
Current Position/Institution: Randall Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon
Amra Sadiq, MD
Class of 2024
Current Position/Institution: NYU Langone Health in New York
Gwen Seemann, MD
Class of 2024
Current Position/Institution: St. David’s Children’s Hospital in Texas
Feras Hares, MD
Class of 2025
Current Position/Institution: Promedica Toledo Children’s Hospital in Ohio
Jacqueline Lee, MD
Class of 2025
Current Position/Institution: Cardiology Fellowship at Rady’s Children in San Diego
Stijn Mintjens, MD
Class of 2025
Current Position/Institution: NYP-Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York
Clinical Faculty
Justin Yeh, MD
Division Chief, Clinical Professor, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Juliette Hunt, MD
Program Director, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Robert B. Kelly, MD
Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Jason M. Knight, MD
PICU Medical Director, Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Philip Suh, MD
Clinical Instructor, UC Irvine School of Medicine
James P. Cappon, MD
Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Jason E. Cook, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Michele Domico, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Patrick Chisum, MD
Clinical Instructor, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Dina M. Iwai, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Mehrdad Jalili, MD
Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Patricia Liao, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Paul Liu, MD
Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Paul Lubinsky, MD
Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Adam J. Schwarz, MD
Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Maneesha Limaye, MD
Clinical Instructor, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Ila Sehgal, DO
Clinical Instructor, UC Irvine School of Medicine