Penn State Children’s Hospital is located on the campus of Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. The scope and breadth of the Children’s Hospital services is evidenced in our neonatal and pediatric intensive care units, pediatric surgical specialties including open-heart and heart transplant surgery, diagnosis and treatment of cancer and in our management programs for children with diabetes, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy and child psychiatry.

The Pediatric Orthopaedic Service cares for a wide range of problems that involve children from birth through the age of seventeen years. The treated conditions include those of congenital, developmental, acquired and traumatic origin. The orthopaedic residents rotate on the pediatric orthopaedic service for four months during each of their PGY III and IV years of training. The total formal pediatric experience therefore extends for eight months.

With an extensive outpatient experience, the resident participates in specialty clinics in which a multidisciplinary approach is used to treat patients with complex problems. These clinics include: Cerebral Palsy, Limb Deficiency/Juvenile Amputee, Myelomeningocele, Muscular Dystrophy and Spinal Cord Injury.

The inpatient and operative experience is busy and may often include ten to fifteen major procedures weekly. A formal pediatric orthopaedic call schedule complements the pediatric trauma experience. The residents on the pediatric orthopaedic rotation are instructed in the evaluation and treatment of a wide spectrum of childhood disorders. These include, among others:

• Common hip problems such as DDH, Legg-Calve-Perthes and SCFE
• Complex spinal deformities (congenital, neuromuscular, idiopathic scoliosis, kyphosis)
• Pediatric bone and joint infections
• Angular and rotational limb deformities
• Limb length discrepancy (Ilizarov lengthening techniques)
• Pediatric polytrauma and fracture care
• Lower extremity disorders, including infantile and adolescent tibia vara
• Congenital limb deficiency and juvenile amputees
• Orthopaedic approach to skeletal dysplasia and other growth conditions
• Pediatric foot and ankle disorders such as clubfeet, tarsal coalitions and flatfeet
• Neuromuscular disorders

The pediatric service is involved in a variety of research endeavors ranging from longitudinal clinical follow-up studies to a seminal basic science investigative effort concerning the mechanical and biologic attributes of the ossific nucleus of the hip in developmental dysplasia and avascular necrosis.

For more information regarding Penn State Orthopaedics' residency training program, please email the residency program coordinator at OrthoResidency@hmc.psu.edu.