Downtown Health Plaza

Primary care training takes place at the Downtown Health Plaza which provides accessible care for the indigent population of Forsyth county, with 12,000 patient visits annually. The Downtown Health Plaza opened in November 2000. Housestaff have block rotations at Downtown Health Plaza in each of the three years of the training program. Social workers and WIC personnel are present to provide support services. A separate adolescent clinic takes place at Downtown Health Plaza, and an ambulatory teaching conference is held each morning. The Center is open Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., with an after-hours clinic on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Forsyth Medical Center

The Term Nursery is located in Forsyth Medical Center, a 926-bed facility with more than 5,600 deliveries annually. The normal newborn nursery consists of 60 bassinets and a Level II special care nursery of 36 bassinets. The resident rotations at Forsyth include normal newborn nursery delivery service & special care nursery. The rotation at Forsyth provides residents an excellent opportunity to learn delivery room care, resuscitation skills, as well as how to care for normal and sick newborns in a community hospital setting. Supervision is by full-time general pediatric faculty and neonatologists from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Intensive Care Nursery

The Intensive Care Nursery at the Brenner Children’s Hospital is a Level III facility and includes 25 intensive care beds and 12 intermediate beds. This unit provides care to neonates with a wide variety of medical and surgical problems, with 525 plus admissions each year.

Pediatric Critical Care Units

The Pediatric Critical Care Units consist of the 12-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), the 7-bed Pediatric Intermediate Care Unit (PIMC) and the Sedation Suite. The units are staffed by a pediatric second-year resident, an emergency medicine resident and an anesthesia resident. Attendings are boarded in pediatric critical care medicine and/or anesthesia.

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Pediatric Emergency Room

There are more than 16,000 pediatric emergency room visits each year; the newly built emergency room opened in 1996. Pediatric residents have rotations each of the three years in the 7-bed pediatric emergency room area. Pediatric patients are not triaged or screened by other physicians. The pediatric resident is the physician of first contact for the assessment, workup and management of pediatric emergency room patients. A faculty member board certified in pediatrics and emergency medicine is in charge of the emergency room curriculum.

Inpatient Service

There are more than 4,500 medical admissions annually to the pediatric inpatient service. Eighty percent of the admissions come from outside the Winston-Salem area. The referral base includes western North Carolina, southwestern Virginia and eastern Tennessee. Approximately ten percent of the admissions are hospitalized under the care of pediatricians in the community. The case mix represents a variety of problems seen by practicing pediatricians as well as complex subspecialty problems.  

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Inpatient Team

The Inpatient Team consists of PL-1, PL-2 and PL-3 Residents as well as third- and fourth-year medical students. The PL-1 is the primary physician. Individual management decisions are made with the senior resident and the attending with input from head nurses, nurse clinicians, dieticians, social workers and clinical pharmacologists. Morning report occurs Monday through Friday with the Chairman of the Department and representatives from the various subspecialties. Additional attending teaching rounds are held four times weekly for in-depth discussions of selected cases

Continuity Clinic

Each house officer is assigned one-half day weekly for Continuity Clinic in the newly renovated 26-room pediatric outpatient clinic facility in the Brenner Children’s Hospital or Downtown Health Plaza. The Continuity Clinic carries the highest priority in our program, and residents at all levels are relieved of other duties to attend the clinic. Patients include healthy newborns as well as follow-ups from the inpatient service and children with complex problems. Residents are supervised by general pediatric faculty.

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Subspecialty Clinics

Subspecialty Clinics take place daily in the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic. More than 19,000 pediatric subspecialty visits occur annually. Clinics include allergy and immunology, cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, genetics, hematology and oncology, infectious disease, myelodysplasia, nephrology and neurology.

Pediatric Radiology

Pediatric Radiology is an integral part of the Brenner Children’s Hospital and is housed right within our tower, separate from adult radiology services. The department is staffed by board-certified pediatric radiologists. Weekly teaching conferences take place during inpatient rotations.