FAQ

The goal of PediatricEducation.org is to build a pediatric virtual learning community.

The project’s hypothesis is that residents, fellows, and staff physicians practicing pediatrics can broaden and deepen their knowledge of pediatrics through the use of a continuing pediatric education program that is delivered daily in small granules and integrated into their workflow in the form of pediatric cases.

To place the learning in a clinical context, each case begins with a question, and the case is then used to illustrate and discuss the question, thus creating a form of situated learning that is focused on the discussion that occurs at a higher level after the diagnosis is made.

Over time these cases will aggregate into an unstructured curriculum of pediatric topics that will closely parallel the structured curriculum of a pediatric residency, fellowship and continuing medical education program. Engaging in discussions related to these cases will also result in the development of educational collaborative relationships.

Additionally, the case archive will consist of a database of pediatric cases that can be used by individuals for self-study and review, and by medical educators to demonstrate to their students the spectrum of a disease, the multiple etiologies of a symptom, key concepts to master within a discipline, and the variety of diseases within different age groups.

From the child, knowledge.

PediatricEducation.org addresses the continuum of pediatric education and may be of use primarily to four distinct populations. It is written for and intended primarily for use by Residents, Fellows, or Attending Physicians practicing pediatrics. Medical Students beginning their study of pediatrics or Other Health Care Providers practicing pediatrics may find it useful. Finally, Patients (including patient’s family members or friends) may find it of some use, though probably difficult to understand. At some point in the future we would like to create a textbook that would help patients better understand the cases in PediatricEducation.org.

PediatricEducation.org’s Educational Objectives are based upon the ACGME General Competencies:

1. The learner will acquire knowledge of the pediatric discipline
2. The learner will improve his/her analytical thinking skills
3. The learner will analyze his/her own learning needs for needed improvement
4. The learner will use evidence from scientific studies to answer the questions posed
5. Some learners will use these cases to facilitate the learning of others
6. The learner will be exposed to cultural, age, gender and disability issues
7. The learner will be exposed to examples of professional respect and altruism
8. The learner will be exposed to the interactions between various systems of practice
9. The learner be exposed to different practice and delivery systems of care
10. The learner be exposed to examples of patient advocacy

PediatricEducation.org is curated by Donna M. D’Alessandro, MD and Michael P. D’Alessandro, MD.

Donna D’Alessandro received her M.D. from Wayne State University School of Medicine, completed a residency in Pediatrics at the Children’s Memorial Hospital / Northwestern University, and completed a fellowship in General Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston / Harvard Medical School. She is currently a Professor of Pediatrics and a member of the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the University of Iowa.

• LinkedIn profile for Donna D’Alessandro M.D.
• Profiles for Donna D’Alessandro M.D. at University of Iowa College of Medicine, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, and University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital
• ImpactStory Altmetrics for Donna D’Alessandro M.D.
• Google Scholar search for DM D’Alessandro and DM Santer
• Google Scholar Citations for DM D’Alessandro
• ORCHiD ID for Donna D’Alessandro M.D.
• PubMed search for D’Alessandro DM and Santer DM

Michael D’Alessandro received an M.D. from Wayne State University School of Medicine, completed a residency in Diagnostic Radiology at the University of Iowa, and completed a fellowship in Pediatric Radiology at Children’s Hospital Boston / Harvard Medical School. He is currently a Professor of Radiology and a member of the Division of Pediatric Radiology at the University of Iowa.

The Drs. D’Alessandros’ research is in the field of digital libraries and educational informatics.

By reading PediatricEducation.org regularly, and participating in its discussions, individuals will be taking part in unstructured, situated learning that will result in continuing pediatric education.

If you are a Resident, Fellow, or Attending Physician practicing pediatrics – or if you are a Health Care Provider practicing pediatrics – you may participate in the Learning Collaboratory. Send us your comments or questions about specific cases posted on PediatricEducation.org by filling out the Comment Form.

Answers to comments or questions about specific cases on PediatricEducation.org are posted in the Learning Collaboratory, in reverse chronological order.

See our Comment Form. Please note: if you are a patient (including family members and friends), we are unable to answer your personal medical questions. Check our list of other resources that may help to answer your questions.

If you would like to be automatically notified once a month of the new cases added to PediatricEducation.org, you may join a notify-only mailing list that sends you one email a month to notify you of the new cases posted to the site.

To subscribe to the PediatricEducation.org mailing list, please go to: http://www.freelists.org/list/pediatriceducationnews

Enter your e-mail address, make sure the Subscribe option is chosen, and click on the “Go!” button.

You will be sent an email asking you to confirm your subscription to the list. Simply reply to the message leaving the message body intact and you will be all set.

Yes, please feel free to link to PediatricEducation.org and to publicize it.

We add one new case each week.

To review cases from previous months and years, use the calendar in the left column of the page or you may use the case archives:
Cases by Disease
Cases by Symptom
Cases by Specialty
Cases by Age
Cases by Date

Web sites are reorganized on an all-too-often basis, and the location of the document being linked to may have changed. Alternatively, the document may have been replaced by a more up-to-date document. You have two options:

1. Go to the home page of the Web site in question, and type into its search engine the title of the document you are looking for. This will hopefully locate for you the new location of the document or the new version of the document.

2. Go to the Internet Archive and type the Web address (URL) of the document in question into its WayBack Machine search engine and see if it has an archived copy of the document.

The practice of pediatrics is a dynamic process that is constantly changing and evolving. The information in each case was correct, to the best of our knowledge, on the date it was published. It is not our intention to revise older cases as the practice of pediatrics advances. Instead, please use the cases as a historical archive to see how the practice of pediatrics for a certain disease has evolved over time.

Yes, an online version of our flyer can be found: here

Yes, our RSS feed may be found at:
feed://www.pediatriceducation.org/feed/

Yes, PediatricEducation.org is mirrored by the Widernet project, through which it is distributed to hundreds universities in dozens of countries in the developing world.

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