Program Content and Objectives
The goal of the clinical fellowship training program in pulmonary disease/critical care medicine at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center is to provide the trainee with an environment, patient population, and resources which afford excellent training and clinical competence in pulmonary and critical care medicine. This includes clinical training devoted to pulmonary diseases (both inpatient and outpatients) and the critical care treatment of medical, surgical, cardiac, obstetrical, and neurological diagnosis.
In all of these settings, fellows are provided with opportunities to directly manage pulmonary and critical care patients, while being supervised by staff members of the division. In addition, trainees are exposed to patients following hospital discharge and gain experience in managing this population in a pulmonary/critical care outpatient clinic. The trainee acquires procedural skills related to the care of pulmonary and critical care patients throughout these rotations. In addition, fellows gain extensive experience in working as an effective member of the critical care and pulmonary consult teams.
Evaluation
Fellows are provided feedback on an ongoing basis by the faculty both face-to-face as well as through the New Innovations website. Every 6 months, the Clinical Competency Committee meets to judge the fellows’ performance and provide guidance for improvement. At this meeting, the CCC opines on the progress of each fellow in each of the ACGME Milestones of training. This is followed by a face-to-face meeting with the program director in order to discuss the positives and negatives of a given fellows’ progress. In addition, on a bi-monthly basis, the Program Evaluation Committee meets. This committee consists of representative faculty as well as a fellow from each year of training and allows for a review of the division’s specific rotations and curriculum and allows for review of any concerns from the faculty or trainee viewpoint. Every year, the first and second-year fellows take an in-service exam in pulmonary and critical care medicine, and the third-year fellows take an in-service exam in critical care medicine. These exams allow for pinpointing areas of weakness in fellows’ funds of knowledge that may be homed in upon during board exam preparation. Lastly, the program director meets with all of the fellows on a monthly basis to receive feedback on their experience with the programs and to discuss potential changes as the need arises.