Corniche Hospital, a top maternity and neonatal healthcare facility owned and operated by the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (Seha), has launched a new fellowship programme in neonatal medicine.

The course was developed by the hospital’s academic and medical leadership, in close collaboration with leading neonatologists from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in the US city of Baltimore.

A Joint Commission International-accredited health care facility, Corniche Hospital and is managed by Johns Hopkins Medicine International. It is the regional referral center for high-risk pregnancies and newborns with more than 8,000 deliveries and 1,000 admissions to the neonatal care unit.

“The new programme is a significant milestone in our commitment to deliver excellent care to the local community and the region, as well as to nurture the next generation of health care providers,” said Ron Lavater, chief executive officer at Corniche Hospital.

“The programme addresses the growing human resource gap in subspecialty-trained neonatologists in Abu Dhabi. It creates a pipeline of highly qualified, local neonatal consultants whose training is based on an accredited curriculum and broad international experience.”

The programme is designed to meet the educational requirements of the Arab Boards.

It will be incorporated into the country’s Tanseeq graduate medical education match programme for the 2013 / 2014 academic year. Upon completion, certified graduates will be fully qualified and licensed by the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (HAAD) as consultants in neonatology.

“We commend Corniche Hospital for its commitment to graduate medical education and look forward to continued collaborative efforts in this critical area of health systems improvement,” said Dr Hatem Al Ameri, manager, Health Professional Licensing Department, HAAD.

For this academic year, interested candidates can learn more about Corniche Hospital’s neonatal fellowship programme and can apply by going to HAAD’s website and viewing the advertisement posted, Dr Al Ameri added.

“This training programme transfers specialized knowledge to Emirati citizens allowing them to become leaders of local neonatal critical care units and to provide committed long-term health leadership in the UAE,” said Edward Lawson, MD, chief of neonatal medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who helped to design the training programme and will provide support to the fellows.

The clinical workload for graduates will cover 80 per cent of each physician’s schedule, with 20 per cent reserved for scholarly activities.

Didactics, procedural skills training, neonatal resuscitation skills, competency-based assessments, mentorship and professional development will be managed by the consultants and medical staff of Corniche Hospital, while Sheikh Khalifa Medical City (SKMC) staff will provide subspecialty care training at Corniche Hospital and surgical care training at the SKMC campus.

Additionally, rotations, both elective and required, will include UAE and international experiences at partner institutions, including the Johns Hopkins Hospital and University College Hospital in the UK.

The Corniche Hospital neonatal fellowship programme will closely collaborate with a similar programme at Tawam Hospital, which has also recently received Arab Board recognition. – TradeArabia News Service