Pulmonary Disease & Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Greenville

A central moral responsibility of medical education is the improvement of the health of society. We are committed to training physicians with a passion for clinical care, education, and research to become tomorrow’s leaders in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine through excellence in patient care, scholarship, innovation and leadership.  The program aims to provide a rich learning environment that is academically rigorous and learner-focused in its education, promoting procedural proficiency, lifelong scholarship, interprofessional collaboration, team-based care, and focused on innovation in safe quality healthcare delivery, in order to enhance learning and train the next generation of pulmonary and critical care physicians who can effectively promote the health and well-being of the communities that we serve.

The objectives and requirements of the Prisma Health/USCSOM Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship will be accomplished through a large, single sponsoring health system with an 800+ bed main campus (including 117 ICU beds) and 7 additional satellite facilities (total licensed beds 1100+).  In this system, there already exist 13 accredited residency training programs as well as 16 fellowship programs.  The Department of Medicine has over 700 faculty members, included in 16 subspecialty divisions and primary care.  The system also has numerous related disciplines available to participate in the curriculum.  The Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care/Sleep Medicine employs 20+ physician providers who are ABIM-boarded in Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine, and many are also boarded in Sleep Medicine.  These physicians demonstrate clinical interests in asthma, COPD, lung cancer, sleep medicine, interstitial lung disease, sarcoidosis, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension, and interventional pulmonology.  The learning environment ensures that trainees will have a diversity of patients and a variety of illnesses and procedures to accomplish the ACGME competencies outlined for a Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Fellowship.

The curriculum and clinical learning environment will be based on established ACGME program requirements.  The fellowship training program will be 36 months in length.  The 1^st year will largely be clinical and aimed at teaching fellows basic aspects of pulmonary medicine.  Rotations will be with our pulmonary consult services and ambulatory clinics.  Fellows will be exposed to a variety of procedures including bronchoscopy, thoracentesis, intubation, pleural biopsy, pulmonary function testing, cardiopulmonary exercise testing, sleep disorder testing, and ventilator management.  The 2^nd and 3^rd years will be aimed at expanding the knowledge gained in the 1^st year, and structured to support the development of each trainee’s career interests.  Clinical experience will occur in ICU rotations, electives, and specialty clinics.  Elective time is used to gain more experience outside of the typical medical ICU or consult setting (e.g. long-term acute care, CVICU, SICU, T-surg, Neuro ICU, Transplant), expanding teaching roles, and pursuing scholarly activities.  The fellows will also participate in a longitudinal clinic ½ day/week in which they will follow their own panel of patients over the entire 36-month training period.  They will also have opportunities in multidisciplinary subspecialty clinics (e.g. sleep, pulmonary hypertension, cystic fibrosis, thoracic oncology).

Research opportunities are afforded to the trainees by exposure to faculty and attendance at conferences during the 1^st year.  In the latter part of the 1^st year, research project ideas will be presented, discussed, and assigned a mentor along with a formal plan for each project.  A portion of the 2^nd year and the 3^rd year of training is available for research activities.  Some fellows who wish to pursue academic careers may wish to concentrate solely on research activities.  Others who wish to pursue private practice or clinician educator careers may spend this time doing research, quality improvement projects, teaching roles, or electives.  All fellows have opportunities through our institutional partners (e.g. Clemson, USC, Furman) to obtain a Clinical and Translational Research Certificate or various masters degrees.

Conference participation spans the full 3 years of training.  These conferences will include Pulmonary Grand Rounds, Trends in Pulmonary and Critical Care (Journal Club), Pulmonary Morbidity and Mortality, Fellows Case Conference, and Research Conference.  The fellows will also participate in conferences within the Department of Medicine such as Internal Medicine Grand Rounds.  There will also be a core curriculum for the entire training period which includes respiratory physiology and clinical topics. The 1^st year fellows will also attend a Bronchoscopy Boot Camp and have a “nuts and bolts” series instructing them on the basics of bronchoscope care, procedural skill, and interpretation of tests.  Finally, all fellows will participate in, and should expect to present at, various national specialty specific meetings such as American Thoracic Society, American College of Chest Physicians, and Society of Critical Care Medicine.