We believe that this year should be a fellowship year, not an extension of residency. As such, we strive to ensure that the fellows are given responsibilities and autonomy commensurate with their experience.
In our 1-year program, the fellows are both given 6 months in the Shock-Trauma ICU. This ICU houses all trauma and EGS patients. The fellows are responsible for the ICU during this time, expected to lead rounds, assign tasks to residents, APPs, and students daily. They have a large ancillary support staff consisting of a unit specific pharmacist, respiratory therapist, clinical nutritionist, and speech, occupational, and physical therapists. There are 9 surgical faculty core to the Trauma and EGS service line, all of which are board certified in surgical critical care. Fellows spend additional months in the Surgical ICU, which houses all other patients from surgical service lines and in the Neuro ICU for additional experience in other management of critical brain pathology. There are additional elective possibilities throughout many other service lines that can be chosen to fit the fellows career goals.
Fellows take call 24-hour call, every other Saturday. This call gives the fellow a “junior faculty” experience and includes managing trauma resuscitations, operative cases, and the ICU simultaneously, all while a trauma faculty member is in house. The calls are designed to allow the fellow a degree of freedom that is different from residency, while still maintaining the safety of having an experienced surgeon nearby.
Didactics are accomplished in two protected conferences weekly in which a variety of operative and critical care topics are discussed.
Additional, non-clinical experiences are offered throughout the year. We ask each fellow to participate in a quality improvement project with more available per the fellow’s desire. We additionally include our fellows in Trauma Peer Review and our Trauma operations committee, ensuring that they get exposure to the inner workings of a level one trauma center. Finally, there are additional opportunities that are given such as ATLS instructorship, the ASSET course, and more!
