Mission

The Department aims to give our graduates a child and family-centred approach to paediatric illness; and to promote Child Health through education and research, as the priority in Health.

 Objectives

• To develop the paediatric content of the medical undergraduate curriculum to ensure that all medical graduates are sensitive to the needs of sick children and conversant with effective and efficient treatments in Paediatrics.
• To provide a high-quality student experience and education.
• To establish UCC as the leading research-active paediatric centre in Ireland.
• To consolidate existing research projects and innovative paediatric research relating to the stated health needs and priorities of Irish children.
• To ensure that all new clinical appointments in the region have a teaching and/or research role in the department.
• To expand the consultant base in Cork Paediatrics and in the Munster region to allow expansion of the school, collaborative research and local delivery of a comprehensive service.
• To collaborate with HSE South and South West group to deliver the academic core facility and leadership for developing a regional children's unit in Cork involving acute medical and surgical paediatric care.
• To encourage the further development of successful programmes in neonatal and paediatric resuscitation.
• To establish Community Paediatrics as an academic discipline with a view to collaborative research at local, national and international levels.

Integrated Teaching and Training

The UCC  Paediatric Academic Unit is the home of teaching and training for both undergraduate medical students and postgraduate paediatric and health discipline trainees. It is the only such fully integrated facility in the School of Medicine, where tomorrow’s doctors can see research-led healthcare both being both developed and delivered. The integration with the paediatric outpatient departments on the floor below makes the patient encounter for research more understandable and accessible for children. The standard of the facilities in the Paediatric Outpatients Department and the linked Academic Paediatric Unit is an excellent step forward in providing modern, fit-for-purpose and comprehensive teaching, training, clinical and research space.

Outreach & Community Buy-In

The unit has links with local schools and has invited them into the unit to explore paediatric clinical examinations which help to break down barriers and any fears children have regarding healthcare encounters. The unit also has links via Dr Jackie Pando Kelly to a mission hospital in the Andes mountains in Peru which medical students have been visiting for several years. Staff may also start visiting over the coming summers after Dr Pando Kelly and a colleague published a book of photos and poems about the hospital this year. Healthcare knowledge exchanges have also been set up with the University of Omdurman in Sudan and the Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute. Our staff have developed outreach clinics designed to detect developmental delay in deprived local areas including the Young Knocknaheeny project to ensure early intervention for the most vulnerable children.