Didactic Curriculum

From traditional lectures by world-renowned experts to hands-on simulator training sessions, our educational program is high yield, innovative, and extensive. Key components of the curriculum include:

  1. Essentials of Critical Care Lecture Series
    These lectures are organized by organ system and are given year-round by faculty within the division as well as from other subspecialties.
  2. Case Conferences
    These occur weekly either as morbidity and mortality or as clinicopathological conferences. Fellows participate in presentation and discussion as do colleagues from the Departments of Radiology and Pathology and the Divisions of Pulmonary Medicine and Infectious Diseases.
  3. Ultrasound Training Sessions
    These sessions provide fellows with the essential training to perform ultrasound-based procedures and perform and interpret focused ultrasound examinations of the chest, heart, abdomen, and blood vessels. A complete four-day critical care ultrasonography course is provided at the beginning of the fellowship taught by nationally-renowned experts in the field. These are followed by weekly ultrasound review sessions.
  4. Simulator Training Sessions
    These sessions train fellows to manage a wide variety of complex case scenarios and introduce them to devices used for difficult airway management and other emergent procedures. A series of six half-day sessions is provided at the beginning of the year followed by refresher sessions throughout the fellowship.
  5. Focused Critical Care Bootcamps
    Full-day hands-on training sessions in advanced treatment modalities in cardiothoracic critical care and neurocritical care are provided in September and October of the academic year.
  6. Case-Based Core Topics Series
    This monthly series provides fellows with key guidelines and articles to review, and then challenges them to put the evidence into practice using interactive case scenarios.
  7. Clinical Research Lecture Series
    A multi-session course in basic clinical research design, study interpretation including concerns for bias and confounding, data interpretation and presentation, basic statistical methods and IRB submissions.
  8. Weekly Research Meetings
    Fellows involved in clinical research take part in these weekly meetings with our research group.
  9. Journal Clubs and Board Reviews
    Monthly sessions that are facilitated by key clinical faculty members.
  10. Critical Care Grand Rounds
    Biweekly updates on emerging clinical research and advanced treatment modalities are provided by invited regional, national, and international experts.
  11. Morning Chief of Service Rounds
    Daily inter-hospital teaching rounds via videoconferencing provide an overview of the clinical and administrative issues facing a large interdisciplinary critical care system.