Pediatric Medicine Residency

About

The University of Hawaii Pediatric Residency Program is a three-year, fully-accredited program designed to educate and train pediatricians who will care and advocate for children all over the world. Distinctive features of our close-knit program include managing a broad spectrum of pediatric conditions and cross-cultural experiences afforded by the multicultural population of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. The close involvement of subspecialty and general pediatric faculty in the daily training of residents provides a nurturing clinical learning environment emphasizing continuity of care, quality of care, and scholarly activities. Our residents become excellent general pediatricians or continue to pursue fellowships of their choice.

The program is based at the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children (KMCWC), the only dedicated pediatric and maternal hospital affiliated with the University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine. The hospital serves Hawai`i and the Pacific Basin and contains both faculty and administrative offices.

The Pediatric Residency at the University of Hawai‘i, based at Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children, is dedicated to the children of Hawai‘i and the Pacific through providing an excellent pediatric education for our residents. For over 60 years, this has been the mission of our program and continues to produce qualified pediatricians that care about the communities they serve. Our strengths include a diverse patient population, a dedicated faculty, and the unique experience of learning pediatrics in a women and children’s hospital.

We strive to teach residents to provide high quality pediatric care to children and their families through a commitment toward lifelong learning and service. We also develop in our residents the interpersonal and leadership skills necessary to become excellent physician team leaders.

Our close-knit program includes managing a broad spectrum of pediatric conditions and cross-cultural experiences afforded by the multicultural population of Hawai`i and the Pacific. Dedicated faculty train residents in a robust and nurturing clinical learning environment emphasizing continuity of care, quality of care, and scholarly activities.

The University of Hawai`i Pediatric Residency Program is a three-year, fully accredited program, designed to educate and train pediatricians who will care and advocate for children all over the world.

Core Faculty & Staff

Jennifer Di Rocco, D.O., M.Ed.
Program Director
Associate Professor
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Gina French, M.D.
Associate Program Director
Associate Professor
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Marissa Fakaosita, M.D.
Associate Program Director
Assistant Professor
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Dawn Dural
Program Administrator
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Maureen Chang, MD
Assistant Professor, Community Pediatrics
Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children Outpatient Pediatric Clinic

Pia Francisco-Natanauan, MD
Assistant Professor
Adolescent Medicine
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Joan Meister, MD
Assistant Professor, Community Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Kayalvizhi Natarajan, MD
Assistant Professor, Community Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Brenda Nishikawa, MD
Assistant Professor, Community Pediatrics
Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children Outpatient Pediatric Clinic

Jeffrey Okamoto, MD
Assistant Professor, Community Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

May Okihiro, MD
Assistant Professor, Community Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Alicia Turlington, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor, Community Pediatrics
Kalihi Kokua Valley Community Health Center

Mari Uehara, MD
Assistant Professor, Community Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Yolanda Wu, MD
Assistant Professor, Community Pediatrics
Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children Outpatient Pediatric Clinic

Jeff Okamoto, MD
Assistant Professor, Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics – Kapi`olani Medical Center for Women & Children

Program Details

Curriculum

Pediatric Level One Year

During the PGY-1 of pediatric training, emphasis is placed on a foundation of general pediatric medicine and the diagnosis and management of patients admitted to the hospital. Roughly 70% of the patients are supervised by a University of Hawaii Hospitalist. The other 30% are supervised by community attending physicians. Residents are also introduced to the management of common adolescent, behavioral-developmental and general pediatric problems encountered in the outpatient setting. PGY-1 residents are provided with numerous patient care situations under the supervision of upper-level residents and faculty, and they are responsible for the day-to-day management and order writing on all patients.

Pediatric Level Two Year

PGY-2 of pediatric training expands diagnosis and patient management skills through subspecialty rotations, supervisory experience and directing care on the general inpatient wards, and in the NICU. Residents also provide direct patient care in the pediatric emergency medicine and PICU. Residents also begin to see more acute care patients in the outpatient setting. During calls nights on the wards, upper-level residents answer calls for the clinic patients as well.

Pediatric Level Three Year

PGY-3 of pediatric training provides an opportunity for residents to refine their skills in diagnosis and patient management and emphasizes the supervision and teaching of PGY-2 residents. PGY-3 pediatric residents also serve as supervisors for PGY-1 and newborn nursery patients.

Individualized Educational Units

Individualized Educational Units (IEU) allow you to tailor your residency experience to align with your interests and educational needs. With guidance and support from faculty advisors and program administration, residents customize their own rotations. These rotations are normally 2-4 weeks long and can include a variety of experiences, including:

Global or Rural Health – Rotations in American Samoa and on neighbor islands
OR Bundle – Practice and refine procedure skills, such as LMAs, intubations and PIV placement.
Labor & Delivery – Attend deliveries, assist with NICU admissions and procedures, and cover the nursery overnight.
Private Practice – Work in a busy practice learning how to balance patient care, handle billing/coding, manage an office.
Fellowship-Oriented and Away Rotations – Access to experiences that prepare residents for a specific fellowship are found locally, and residents are welcome to pursue away rotations on the continental U.S. to further explore fellowship options.
Networking – All rotations offer the opportunity to build confidence when faced with increased autonomy and the challenge of working with limited resources. Whether in inpatient or outpatient settings, IEUs provide networking opportunities that may lead to fellowship or employment options following residency.

We continue to work within COVID related restrictions on travel to develop new, rural, and off-island rotations to expand our current IEU curriculum.

Neighbor Island Rotations (Big Island- Hilo, North Hawaii, and Kona; Kauai)
Duration: 2 – 4 weeks

Schedule:

Completely up to you! Inpatient and outpatient opportunities exist at multiple locations and most residents choose to do a mix of both.
Rotation can be used as an opportunity to explore the local area on your off days!

Expectations:

The patient load is variable. As a part of the inpatient rotation you may interact with family medicine residents, round on nursery and wards patients, perform admissions and conduct pediatric consults in the ER.

GLOBAL/INTERNATIONAL HEALTH:

AMERICAN SAMOA
Duration: 2 weeks- 1 month

Expectations:

You work in the pediatric outpatient clinic, nursery, wards, NICU and ICU.
Call can be adjusted but recently has been every 3 days. When on call you do all the admissions, deliveries, and ER consults. After a call day, you have a free day to explore or relax!
Admissions are carried out until discharge. On weekends, you round on and cover all pediatric patients in the hospital.

Background:

Everything is based at Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) hospital. The ICU has two pediatric beds. The ward has 13 rooms.
Your clinical skills are challenged in a setting of limited resources – for example, no MRI, no pulse ox in delivery rooms and limited access to ultrasound.

Global Health

Over the past few years, we have developed several 2–4-week rotations for our PGY3 residents at Lao Friends Hospital for Children in Luang Prabang, Laos and LBJ Tropical Medical Center in Pago Pago, American Samoa. Residents also can join Shriner’s physicians on their musculoskeletal medicine missions within the South Pacific (including Fiji, Tonga, American and Western Samoa, and the Marshall Islands). These experiences will give residents the opportunity to see and manage pathology not typically seen in the Hawaiian Islands or in North America. During these rotations, residents are given the opportunity to work as pre-attendings in inpatient and outpatient pediatric settings, providing care for patients in the newborn nursery and NICU, consulting in the ED, and admitting patients to their own service on the general pediatric floor or pediatric ICU.

We have also incorporated more Global Health material into our curriculum, including pre-departure preparation for rotating residents and an inter-departmental Academic Half Day devoted to Global Health topics for residents from the pediatric, family medicine, and psychiatry residency programs.

Educational Conferences

Resident Academic Half Day, CME Grand Rounds and Research Seminars

Academic Half Day is an integral part of the residency training and is protected educational time, free of clinical duties. Conferences and important resident events include:

Morning Report
General Pediatric and Subspecialty talks by our faculty.
Journal Club and Morbidity & Mortality conferences given by residents.
Board Prep: Board review sessions with residents of your class and an assigned attending.
Program leadership updates on Graduate Medical Education (GME) or Program
Resident Focus Group: Resident protected time to openly discuss resident concerns that are then brought to the Chief Residents for Program comment and/or action.
Meetings with Hospital Leaders: Gidget Ruscetta, Kapiolani’s COO, meets with residents to provide general updates on the operations at Kapiolani and discuss Institutional Quality Improvement projects data.
Meetings with Department Chair: Dr. Kenneth Nakamura to provide Department ongoing efforts and seek resident input.
Radiology Rounds
Grand Rounds
Neuroradiology Rounds
Sim Lab

Rotation Schedule

PGY 1

Wards 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Wards 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Night Float 6 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Infectious Disease 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Heme-Onc 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
NICU 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Newborn Nursery (NBN) 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Subspecialty Rotation 2 weeks
Subspecialty Rotation 4 weeks
ED 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Development 4 weeks
Ambulatory Pediatrics 4 weeks
QI + Procedure 1 week, Vacation 3 weeks

PGY 2

Wards 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Day Float 2 weeks, T-IEU 2 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Night Float 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
NICU 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
PICU 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Subspecialty Rotation 4 weeks
Subspecialty Rotation 4 weeks
Individualized Education Unit 4 weeks
Individualized Education Unit 4 weeks
ED 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Adolescent 4 weeks
Ambulatory Pediatrics 4 weeks
QI 1 week, Vacation 3 weeks

PGY 3
Wards 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Wards 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Day Float 2 weeks, NBN 2 weeks
Night Float 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
NICU 4 weeks
PICU 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
IEU 3 weeks, T-IEU 1 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Individualized Education Unit 4 weeks
Individualized Education Unit 4 weeks
Individualized Education Unit 4 weeks
ED 4 weeks Kapi’olani Hospital
Ambulatory Pediatrics 4 weeks
Research 1 week, Vacation 3 weeks

Inpatient Rotations
Outpatient Rotations

Application

Applications from medical and osteopathic schools in the United States and Canada, and international medical school graduates will be accepted through the Electronic Residency Applications System (ERAS) from September 1st – December 15th. Applications submitted after December 15th will not be reviewed. Your ERAS application should include three letters of reference (at least one from Pediatrics), your Medical Student Performance Evaluation (aka dean’s letter), your personal statement, your curriculum vitae, your full medical school transcript and your USMLE transcript. Our program will also be participating in the ERAS supplemental application for this upcoming recruitment season. Please note that a completed transcript from USMLE Step I is needed for an application to be considered complete for review, and results from both Step I and II are needed prior to the end of the interview season. COMLEX scores are accepted, and USMLE Step exams are not required for osteopathic applicants. We accept International Medical Graduates and sponsor J-1 visas only. Prior clinical training is not required for our residency program, and we consider every application. It is very important for your file to be as complete as possible for our review. We interview November through January on selected Mondays and Tuesdays, and all interview invitations are extended only via ERAS.

Applying to the Program:
ERAS Common Application
ERAS Supplemental Application
Medical School Performance Evaluation (MSPE)
Personal Statement
A minimum of 3 Letters of Recommendations, at least one from Pediatrics
Official Medical School Transcripts
USMLE or COMLEX Transcripts
We only sponsor J-1 Visas

Interviews:
Interviews are by invitation only and will be conducted via a virtual platform for all applicants.

Miscellaneous Information:
A matched applicant’s acceptance into our program will be contingent upon verification of supporting documents and a personal background check.

Should you have additional questions please contact:
Recruitment and Selection Assistant, peds@hawaii.edu

Please be aware that all incoming residents are required to be fully vaccinated.

Hawaii Residency Programs, Inc. provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. If you need accommodations at any time, please contact HRP Human Resources at 808-586-2891.

information on drug testing requirements

Residents

PGY-1 Class of 2026

Megan Blair
Johanna Bonner
Alice Chen
Sung Hwan Choi
Mohamed Kandil
Juyun Lee
Furqaan Lim
Safiuddin Mohammed

PGY-2 Class of 2025

Jacob Atkins, D.O.
Medical School: University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine

Nanea Cavaco, M.D.
Medical School: University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine

Monica Joglekar, M.D.
Medical School: Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine

Zachary “River” Kim, M.D.
Medical School: A.T. Still University of Health Sciences School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Arlene Kirohara, M.D.
Medical School: University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine

Garrett “Kaimana” Kuwada, M.D.
Medical School: University of Hawaii at Manoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine

Yeun Ho Lee, M.D.
Medical School: Kyung Hee University College of Medicine

Daisuke Sato, M.D.
Medical School: Yamaguchi University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

PGY-3 Class of 2024

Anirban Dutta, MB, BS
Medical School: North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Heath and Sciences, India

Mari Grief, MD
Medical School: University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine

Youngtae Kang, MD
Medical School: Chosun University College of Medicine, The Republic of South Korea

Rachel Kwon, DO
Medical School: Nova Southeastern University, Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine

Tiffany Lau, MD
Medical School: University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine

Thanaporn Ratchataswan, MD
Medical School: Chulalongkorn University Faculty of Medicine, Thailand

Mari Ueno, MD
Medical School: University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine

Joshua Umland, DO
Medical School: Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific

Salary & Benefits

summary of salary & benefits

Contact

Pediatrics Residency Program
1319 Punahou Street, 7th floor.
Honolulu, Hawaii 9682
808) 369-1200
(808) 369-1212

Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children
Please contact Kapi`olani Medical Center’s main line for our Faculty’s Clinical Practices and their directory at:
(808) 983-6000