Surgical Critical Care Fellowship

The institutional mission of University Hospitals is “To Heal. To Teach. To Discover.” The Surgical Critical Care Fellowship mimics this and adds “To Serve”. The fellowship will train the next generation of surgeons practicing critical care surgery and dedicated to the service of their future communities. Graduates will be positioned to succeed as clinicians, educators, investigators, and leaders in both academic and community settings.

The Fellowship in Surgical Critical Care will achieve its mission by producing graduates who:

• develop expertise in the contemporary management of critically injured or ill patients and achieve American Board of Surgery (ABS) certification in surgical critical care
• demonstrate life-long, self-directed learning, use of evidence-based medicine, and maintain surgical critical care certification
• are subject matter experts and educators in the field
• understand the demographics of their communities and are able to engage in the improvement of local healthcare disparities
• are excellent communicators who guide families and patients through the difficult process of a critical care illness and recovery
• are advocates for patient safety and continuous process improvement in their care setting
• are model professionals in their healthcare system are able to collaborate with a team seeking optimum outcomes for patients
• are aware of the importance of maintaining their own well-being and that of their colleagues

The fellowship will be hosted by the Department of Surgery, Division of Trauma, Critical Care, and Acute Care Surgery at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio. This is a high-volume, high-acuity, urban, Level 1 trauma center. It will be completed in 13 four-week blocks which align with all department training programs.

The primary teaching service (5 blocks) will be the Trauma ICU which averages 18-20 trauma and acute care surgery cases daily and is directed by a trauma surgeon and staffed by members of the Trauma/ACS Division (fellowship-trained in Surgical Critical Care). Fellows will rotate two blocks each with our Anesthesia Critical Care teams in the Surgical ICU (transplant, vascular, general) and Cardiothoracic ICU (peri-op open heart surgery) as well as our Neurocritical Care unit staffed by Neurosurgery/Neurology critical care physicians. For two months, fellows will run the hospital’s trauma service under direct faculty supervision where they will practice the critical care which takes place from the trauma bay to the operating room, and finally arriving in the TICU. Our fellowship will collaborate with the Anesthesia Critical Care training program for didactics. We have de-conflicted training blocks to ensure appropriate patient-to-fellow ratios and non-interference with other learners such as Chief Surgical Residents. The overall goal of the facility is to train residents in collaborative, multi-disciplinary critical care and prepare them as future leaders in the field, both in academic and community settings.

Number of Fellows per year: 2

Number of faculty: 40 (TICU, SICU, NICU)