CLINICAL ENVIRONMENT

The Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA provides the primary environment for fellowship training. The Pediatric Service has 87 beds and admits approximately 7000 pediatric medical patients per year. The nursery service has 44 beds.

More than 300 new patients are referred to the Division of Hematology/Oncology yearly. These patients have various disorders of red cells, white cells, platelets and soluble coagulation factors, referrals for bone marrow transplant and new malignancies that constitute our areas of expertise. Approximately 110 new pediatric cancer patients are referred yearly; one-third of these patients have leukemia; the remainder have solid tumors.

There are usually 15 to 20 inpatients under the primary care of the Division of Hematology/Oncology as well as several patients for whom consultation is being provided. Approximately 200 outpatient visits are made in the Hematology/Oncology clinic every month. In addition, we staff outreach clinics at Orthopaedic Hospital in Los Angeles, the Kern County Medical Center in Bakersfield, the Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar, the UCLA Lancaster and Santa Clarita Oncology Clinics and in Las Vegas. UCLA is a member Institution of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) and we enroll most of our oncology patients in COG protocols. The Division Hematology-Oncology is an approved COG Phase II institution. As part of our New Agents program, we conduct a variety of Phase II studies.

UCLA has been a center for pediatric and adult bone marrow transplantation since 1973. A seven-bed critical isolation unit has been developed on the pediatric floor to provide multi-disciplinary care to these patients. Children with leukemia, aplastic anemia, solid tumors, congenital immunodeficiency, and inborn errors of metabolism are referred to UCLA for performance of allogeneic, autologous, matched unrelated bone marrow transplantation, peripheral blood and umbilical cord stem cell transplantation.