PRS Journal Club Episodes : Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery

Critical Care Medicine

Overview

The Critical Care Medicine fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is at the epicenter of a rapidly growing, cutting-edge critical care enterprise. While UAB Critical Care has always excelled in education and clinical training, we continue to create opportunities for fellows to gain invaluable knowledge and experience in a variety of areas.

The Critical Care Medicine Fellowship consists of one year or two years of postgraduate training following completion of Anesthesiology residency or Emergency Medicine residency, respectively. The fellowship program is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and has five fellowship positions each year.

Fellows spend at least nine months immersed in our high acuity intensive care units that provide a comprehensive clinical learning environment. Fellows can tailor elective rotations to specific areas of clinical or research interest.

UAB Hospital Intensive Care Units

UAB Hospital is a quaternary care hospital. It is largest hospital system in the state and largest employer in the city of Birmingham. With 1,207 beds, it is the eighth largest hospital nationally and ranks among the top three highest acuity patient populations in the country. The patient referral area covers most of the Southeastern region.

Since the late 1990s, the UAB Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine has had primary directorship of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU). The SICU team is a multidisciplinary collaboration between various surgical services, and the faculty are dedicated to fellows' education, research, and clinical maturity. It is a 26-bed multispecialty acute patient population providing postoperative care following elective, emergency, or transplant surgery, and critical care following surgical complications.

The Neurological ICU (NICU) service is staffed by anesthesiologists/intensivists who have specialized training in the intricacies of neurosurgical and neurologic diseases and employ the latest technologies to treat them. They work very collaboratively with the departments of Neurosurgery and Neurology to deliver the highest possible quality of care. Fellows who rotate in the NICU will learn from some of the best minds in the field.

UAB critical care fellows will rotate in the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit (CICU). The CICU consists of 24 beds, and the faculty and staff work collaboratively with UAB's Heart and Vascular Center, the Advanced Heart Failure Center, heart and lung transplantation, and extracorporeal support (ECMO) programs to provide highly complex patient-oriented care. The CICU faculty have developed a robust and dynamic curriculum designed to maximize learning and allow for detailed bedside teaching and acquisition of valuable procedural skills.

Education

The program aims to generate excellent clinicians ready to enter any practice on graduation and can manage a broad range of critically ill patient populations. There are multiple education opportunities to take advantage of every week.

Weekly Core Curriculum lectures series includes speakers within our division of critical care medicine

Weekly multi-disciplinary critical care lecture series that includes speakers from various disciplines that offer cutting edge information on critical care medicin

Weekly departmental Conference for Quality Initiatives offers a forum for discussing patient safety and opportunities for improving the delivery of health care

Monthly Anesthesiology Fellows lecture series to cover topics that include practice management, evaluating evidence-based literature, tools for education, providing meaningful feedback, and having difficult conversations

Monthly Journal Club allows our faculty and fellows to engage in discussing the most current literature

We are constantly evolving our Point of Care ultrasound curriculum to prepare fellows for board certification in the Advanced Critical Care Echocardiography and POCUS. We offer a one-month rotation dedicated to the focus on ultrasound skill acquisition.

Research

The UAB Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine is ranked among the top 10 Anesthesiology departments in NIH funding. We offer many basic science and clinical research opportunities and mentorship. Learn More >>

Our Mission

UAB's fundamental goal is to be the preferred academic medical center for patients and their families. Our growth and forward-thinking approach to the challenges and opportunities for the future will give our fellows a distinct advantage as our practice evolves.

The Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine fellowship strives to transform the field of critical care medicine by generating and translating knowledge into superior clinical practice and education. We will provide the highest quality compassionate care to our patients using innovative practice models and an interdisciplinary approach to medical care, discover new knowledge through cutting-edge research, educate the next generation of leaders in critical care medicine, and be effective leaders within our profession.

More Details

Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Applicant Information

Critical Care Faculty

Critical Care Faculty Publications

About Birmingham

Click here to learn more about The Magic City.

Division Of Pulmonary, Critical Care And Sleep Medicine

Fiberoptic Bronchoscopy and Interventional Pulmonary Medicine

A modern bronchoscopy suite with fluoroscopy is available for ambulatory and inpatient bronchoscopic procedures.

Fellows have ample opportunities to develop skills in performing bronchoalveolar lavage, endobronchial and transbronchial lung biopsies in addition to endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) and endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) directed procedures using both linear and radial instruments in diagnostic evaluation and staging in patients with suspected intrathoracic malignancy.

Training in procedures such as PleurX catheter placement, talc pleurodesis, tracheal dilation, rigid bronchoscopy, thoracoscopy, endobronchial stenting, balloon bronchoplasty, argon photocoagulation (APC) and cryotherapy are performed when appropriate under the direction of board certified interventional pulmonology faculty. Percutaneous tracheostomies are performed at the bedside on patients with chronic respiratory failure under bronchoscopic guidance at both SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital and Mercy Hospital St. Louis.

In addition, fellows gain experience in a number of other invasive diagnostic and therapeutic techniques used in pulmonary medicine such as pleuroscopy, pleural biopsy and the placement and management of chest tubes.

Message From The Chief Of Pulmonary, Critical Care And Sleep Medicine

Welcome to the Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Our section consists of more than 100 dedicated individuals (faculty, fellows, and staff) devoted to fulfilling our mission of delivering outstanding clinical care, innovative research, and a highly competitive training and mentoring program.

Our physicians provide a broad array of sophisticated specialty care at Baylor Clinic, Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, and our affiliated hospitals, including Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Ben Taub Hospital, and Texas Children's Pavilion for Women. A few highlights of our clinical services include leading programs in lung transplantation, interventional pulmonology, comprehensive critical care, sleep medicine, cystic fibrosis and asthma, among many others.

Our renowned physician-scientist and Ph.D. Researchers direct successful federally funded research programs focused on emphysema, asthma, inflammation, respiratory muscles, sepsis, and vascular biology, among others. A number of our research faculty members hold prominent leadership roles in national scientific organizations.

Our section oversees three outstanding clinical fellowship programs in Pulmonary & Critical Care, Sleep Medicine, and Critical Care Medicine, as well as an NIH/NHLBI T-32 research training program in Lung Diseases. These training programs are highly competitive and a substantial number of our graduates hold prominent academic and clinical leadership positions.

I invite you to browse through our website and learn more about our stellar faculty and our outstanding clinical, educational, and research programs.

Ivan O. Rosas, M.D.Chief, Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine

---