A medical fellowship program is an advanced training program that doctors complete after their residency. It provides specialized education and hands-on experience in a specific area of medicine. Emergency Care Partners (ECP) New York-based partner group Progressive Emergency Physicians (PEP) leads and manages the Pediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM) fellowship program at Good Samaritan University Hospital.
Progressive Emergency Physicians is an emergency medicine group based in Long Island, New York. The group manages the emergency departments of four hospitals: Good Samaritan University Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital, Mercy Medical Center, and St. Francis Hospital. The group is comprised of board-certified emergency medicine physicians, board-certified pediatric emergency physicians, and advanced practice providers. In addition to its Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship program, PEP also manages two Emergency Medicine Residency programs, an Emergency Medicine Ultrasound program, and an Emergency Medicine Physician Assistant (PA) fellowship.
The PEM fellowship program at Good Samaritan University Hospital was founded in 2021 by Dr. Reethamma Daniel, MD, FAAP, and is one of only 10 PEM fellowship programs in the state of New York and 85 in the United States. The program offers comprehensive clinical training, didactic education, and hands-on experience in pediatric emergency care. The emergency department is designated as a Level II Trauma Pediatric Trauma Center and treats over 22,000 patients under the age of 21 annually. Physicians will work in the newly renovated Pediatric ED that treats over 20,000 pediatric patients annually in 22 treatment areas separate from the Adult Emergency Department. Construction is also underway on another new, state-of-the-art emergency department that will include a dedicated Pediatric Emergency Department set to open later this year. The Pediatric Emergency Department has 24-hour pediatric attending coverage.
The ACGME-accredited fellowship is designed for both pediatric residency-trained and emergency medicine-trained physicians and takes three years to complete. An ACGME accreditation ensures and improves the quality of graduate medical education.
The fellowship aims to develop fellows’ ability to independently deliver high-quality care to children facing a wide range of urgent and emergent conditions, including medical, surgical, traumatic, toxicologic, and psychiatric emergencies.
As one of Long Island’s largest emergency care providers, Good Samaritan University Hospital serves a diverse patient population across a broad geographic and socioeconomic spectrum, caring for children with a full range of illnesses and injuries.
Dr. Cornelia Muntean, MD, FAAP, the current program director, stated that the fellowship receives over 40 applications annually. Approximately half of the applicants are invited for an interview, with only two fellows ultimately accepted into the program each fall. Dr. Muntean anticipates that with this fall’s enrollment, the program will reach its full capacity of six fellows for the first time since the program’s inception.
