Welcome!
A Message from our Program Director
Our goal is to train you for an enjoyable, rewarding, and academically productive career as a pediatric rheumatologist. We hope you will explore our website further and learn more about all that our fellowship training program can do for you.
James J. Nocton, MD
Fellowship Director and Professor
Fellowship Tour
See the people, places and spaces that make our Pediatric Rheumatology Fellowship one-of-a-kind.
A Conversation with Our Fellows
Meet Our Faculty
Our Spaces and Places
As a fellow, you will...
- Learn to care for patients with conditions that span the entire spectrum of rheumatic, autoimmune, autoinflammatory, and musculoskeletal disease within a large, tertiary-care, free-standing children’s hospital and clinics
- Identify and develop your personal scholarly interest(s) with close mentorship from faculty
- Attend and ideally present your scholarly activity at regional and national conferences
- Develop your skills teaching patients and families, residents, and medical students
- Learn with other fellows within the department by participating in a joint fellowship curriculum which teaches skills and knowledge common to all subspecialties
- Work within a division and department that recognizes and supports the well-being and personal needs of fellows, residents, and medical students
About Our Fellowship
During the first year of the fellowship, fellows will receive an intensive and thorough clinical experience with the goal of learning to diagnose and manage the rheumatic diseases of childhood. Fellows will attend three half-day ambulatory clinics each week, including their own continuity clinic, and will evaluate patients on the in-patient and consult service every weekday and two weekends each month. Fellows are responsible for the evaluation, diagnosis, and management of children representing the entire spectrum of rheumatic, autoimmune, inflammatory, and musculoskeletal disease including Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Juvenile Dermatomyositis, Scleroderma, and Vasculitis. Fellows work very closely with all of the faculty who provide guidance, education, support, and supervision throughout the duration of the program.First-year fellows are on call from home three weeknights each week and two weekends per month, always with a supervising faculty member.
Fellows in the second and third years attend two half-day ambulatory clinics each week, including their own continuity clinic. In addition, there are scheduled clinical ambulatory rotations in the Nephrology Clinic, Dermatology Clinic, Ophthalmology Clinic, and Sports Medicine Clinic where fellows will evaluate patients under the supervision of faculty in those disciplines. Two months of additional clinical elective time is available, and fellows also have the option of attending Immunodeficiency Clinic if interested. The third-year fellow functions as a “Junior Attending” during one month on the in-patient and consult service, remaining under the supervision of faculty but provided with sufficient autonomy to learn to become comfortable as the primary responsible provider and consultant.
In the second and third years, fellows are on call from home one weeknight each week and one weekend each month, always with a supervising faculty member.
All fellows learn musculoskeletal ultrasound with scheduled hands-on educational time beginning in the first year. Interested fellows are also encouraged to participate in the USSONAR year-long ultrasound course during their second or third year. All fellows learn to perform ultrasound-guided joint injections under the supervision of faculty who have completed the USSONAR course.
Fellows attend a weekly rheumatology section case conference where all patients evaluated in the ambulatory clinic the previous week are reviewed and discussed by faculty, nursing, fellows, and ancillary staff. First-year fellows are expected to present one of their cases with a literature review each month at weekly Journal Club. Quarterly conferences are held with the adult rheumatology section where interesting patients and topics of mutual interest are discussed.
The second and third years of fellowship are primarily dedicated to the development of scholarly activity. Fellows identify their area(s) of interest, typically during their first year, and then begin planning their scholarly activity during the first year, with implementation of the plan throughout the second and third years. Four tracks are available, which include specific curricula designed to enhance the fellow’s knowledge and skills in a specific scholarly area. These tracks are Clinical/Translational, Quality Improvement, Basic Science, and Educational. All fellows are expected to complete at least one full scholarly project, which ideally will result in presentations at national conferences and eventual publication. There is the opportunity to pursue Master’s degrees for those who are interested, both here at the Medical College of Wisconsin Graduate School and potentially at other institutions. All fellows will have a primary mentor for their scholarly activity, and all will also form a Scholarship Oversight Committee, consisting of three faculty who are then responsible for guiding the fellow, providing constructive assistance for their scholarly project, and ensuring that the fellow will meet the scholarly requirements of the American Board of Pediatrics by the completion of the training program.
Throughout the three years of the training program, fellows participate in a joint fellowship curriculum within the Department of Pediatrics for all subspecialty fellows, which provides education and training in scholarship and other topics common to all subspecialty fellows.
All fellows participate in the quality improvement activities of the rheumatology section and fellows are expected to also attend at least one additional educational activity designed to improve their knowledge and experience regarding quality improvement concepts.
Fellows also attend the Children’s Research Institute weekly scientific conference and the Department of Pediatrics K-Club Research Conference.
All fellows attend the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting, the Pediatric Rheumatology Symposium (PRSYM), and the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA) meeting.
Fellows are expected to teach the students and residents participating in electives with the pediatric rheumatology service. During a weekly teaching conference dedicated to the students and residents, the fellow is expected to lead discussions regarding the major rheumatic diseases of childhood. This is done under the supervision of faculty, who help guide the fellow in their teaching activities and provide constructive advice regarding their teaching activities.
- Fellows are provided with a dedicated semi-private workspace within the Pediatric Rheumatology section offices, which are located in an office building across the street from the Children’s Hospital and Clinics
- Free covered parking is available adjacent to the section offices
- Underground tunnels connect the office building with the hospital, research buildings, and clinics building (5-10-minute walk between buildings)
- Several cafeterias, coffee carts, and other food services are available throughout the medical complex
- Morning ambulatory clinics begin at 8:30 a.m. and finish at noon; afternoon ambulatory clinics start at 1 p.m. and the last patient scheduled is approximately 4 p.m.
- In-patient rounding and in-patient consults, when necessary, occur either in the mornings on non-clinic days or following clinic
- There are typically 1-2 patients on the rheumatology in-patient service per month and 2-5 in-patient consults per week
- First-year fellows typically start the day at approximately 8 a.m. and finish by 6 p.m.; hours are flexible and sensitive to the needs of the fellow
- Fellows in the second and third years, when not on any clinical service, have very flexible schedules without a determined daily start time or completion time
- Typical weekend rounds last 1-2 hours; the remainder of the day is call from home
- Electronic health record and medical library access is available on-site and remotely
- Fellows have access to the hospital physician’s lounge where food and beverages are available, along with workspaces, newspapers, and television
- The clinic area includes food storage areas, coffee maker, and microwave
- Fellows are offered discounted membership at a local fitness center
Hometown: Prairie Village, KS
Medical School: University of Kansas School of Medicine
Residency: Medical College of Wisconsin
Research/Scholarly Project: TVirtual Clinic: A Digital Pediatric Rheumatology Curriculum
Mentor: Jay Nocton, MD
Scholarly Interests: Medical education, Solidarity in Medicine (personal & professional development for medical trainees)
Why did you choose MCW: I appreciated the opportunity to learn from a large group of attendings with diverse interests to help me explore potential career paths within rheumatology.
Advice for applicants: Be patient with yourself — it can be frustrating when you don’t have all the answers at the beginning, but you will be amazed by the confidence you gain even by the end of the first year of fellowship.
Kaitlin Kirkpatrick, MD 2021-2024
Hometown: Carmel, IN
Medical School: Medical College of Wisconsin
Residency: Internal Medicine/Pediatrics at Medical College of Wisconsin
Research/Scholarly Project: Exact project still TBD but hoping to either focus on the Transition Care Process or Adolescent Compliance.
Mentor: To be determined
Scholarly Interests: Transition care particularly for Lupus patients, difficulties with adolescent compliance with treatments/medications
Why did you choose MCW for fellowship: I loved that all of the faculty at MCW had such a broad array of interests and yet were all still so supportive of each other. It was nice to see some spent the majority of their focus on clinical care which is more of my interest but also to see others spend so much time in the lab and know that they could provide me a unique experience to learn an aspect of research with which I was less familiar. The patient population also drew me in as it is very diverse in Milwaukee and there's a great mix of the more bread and butter peds rheum cases with the rarer more complex conditions. Finally, everyone in the program is also just so warm and welcoming to anyone who rotates with them from a young 3rd year medical student to a graduating senior resident, and you can tell that they all love to teach which just truly cemented my decision in wanting to stay here for fellowship
Advice for Applicants: Try to get a sense of how the attendings and fellows interact at your interview. It can be hard when it's over zoom and your day is mostly just looking at a screen, but if the fellows and attendings are together at lunch, it's a great way to get that vibe if the fellows truly feel like part of the department and connect with their attendings. Also look for places where there are faculty more clinically driven in addition to those more lab research driven. You might not know exactly what you want to research in fellowship and by having both types of people available to you, it will open so many more doors and give you a chance to really pursue anything you might be interested in.
Clinic
Most of the patients evaluated by our rheumatology service are seen in our ambulatory clinic. Here, approximately 2,500 children each year are evaluated for potential musculoskeletal, inflammatory, autoimmune, and rheumatic diseases. The clinic staff consists of a research nurse specialist, administrative assistants, a certified nurse practitioner, and two dedicated clinical nurses with many years of experience in pediatric rheumatology.
Hospital
Children’s Wisconsin, founded in 1894, has 306 beds, a Level 1 Trauma Center, a 72-bed critical care unit and a 69-bed neonatal intensive care unit. The pediatric rheumatology service will serve as the admitting service for select patients with known rheumatic diseases, and these patients will be admitted to one of the acute care floors. The rheumatology service also provides in-patient and emergency room consultation for patients when requested. Rheumatology patients admitted to the critical care unit are cared for primarily by the intensivist team with the rheumatology service acting in a consultative role. Resident teams consisting of a senior resident supervising first-year residents and students provide care to admitted rheumatology patients under the supervision of rheumatology fellows and faculty.
Medical School
The Medical College of Wisconsin is a private medical school on the Milwaukee Medical Campus. Third and fourth-year medical students have the opportunity to participate in elective rotations in pediatric rheumatology and some students rotate through the clinic as part of their pediatric clerkship in the third year. Fellows will have ample opportunity to teach students both in the clinic setting as well as in the hospital. The Department of Pediatrics includes faculty in all pediatric subspecialties and disciplines with more than 70 subspecialty clinics and specialists providing care for the entire spectrum of pediatric illness.
Other Institutions on the Milwaukee Medical Campus include the adult Froedtert Hospital, The Versiti Blood Center of Wisconsin, Children’s Research Institute, the Milwaukee Athletes Against Childhood Cancer Building, and the Curative Care center.
MCW is an outstanding training environment because of the breadth of cases we see and the supportive team that surrounds us. I have had the opportunity to shape my own style of practice with input from multiple experienced attendings as we explore interesting cases together. Our administrators and nurses have also been invaluable teachers for me as I navigate the world of pediatric rheumatology.
Emma Austenfeld, MD: Second-Year Fellow
Our Team
James J. Nocton, MD
Professor of Pediatrics
Director, Pediatric Rheumatology Fellowship Program
Children's Wisconsin Physician's Profile
MCW Faculty Collaboration Database Profile
Scholarly interests: Medical Education, Clinical Therapeutic Trials and Lyme arthritis
Orlando Diaz
Fellowship Coordinator
Lisa Eggebrecht
Administrative Assistant Sr.
Fellowship Program Contact
Program Director
(414) 266-6700 | jnocton@mcw.edu
Program Coordinator
(414) 337-7048 | odiaz@mcw.edu
Administrative Assistant Sr.
(414) 266-6700 | leggebrecht@mcw.edu