Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Program

Clinical training comprises the entire first year and parts of the second and third years of the fellowship, in structured one-month blocks, under the supervision of designated attending physicians. All fellows with complete a minimum of 18 clinical months spread out over 3 years to contain the core requirements of 6 months Medicine-based ICU, 3 months non-Medicine-based ICU and 9 months Pulmonary core rotations. The remaining 18 months with be chosen by the fellow with guided faculty and research mentorship to develop a successful career pathway.

Clinical Rotations

Core Medical ICUs:

Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU): A traditional tertiary care, academic, medical ICU provides a wide range of complex medical patients staffed by Internal Medicine residents and interns.

Medical/Surgical Intensive Care Unit (MSICU): An eclectic specialty ICU caring for Lung transplant, Oncology, BMT, GI-Luminal, GI surgical, and bariatric patients staffed by Anesthesia residents and advanced practice providers.

Specialty Medical Intensive Care Unit (SMICU): A specialty ICU focusing on pre- and post-Liver and Renal transplant patients staffed by advanced practice providers

VA Intensive Care Unit (VA-ICU): A traditional community-based ICU varying for veterans with cardiac and general critical illnesses staffed by Internal Medicine and Family medicine residents. The fellow is also assigned an anesthesia team in the operating room for airway education and intubations.

• Additional Non-Medical ICU Rotations Include:
  • Cardiac intensive care unit
  • Cardiothoracic Surgical intensive care unit
  • Surgical Trauma & Burn intensive care unit
  • Neurosurgical intensive care unit

Inpatient Pulmonary Rotations:

Pulmonary Consults: A high-level tertiary center consultation service with a variety of learners servicing a wide-ranging patient population from common pulmonary syndromes to several different subspecialty pulmonary patients.

Procedure Lab: Working alongside subspecialty trained Interventional Pulmonologists, fellows with learn pre-procedural assessments and planning, and develop skills in common and advanced bronchoscopic and thoracic interventions.

Lung Transplant: MUSC is the only lung transplant center in the state of South Carolina. Work alongside transplant pulmonologists to manage pre- and post-lung transplant patients in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

VA Pulmonary: A traditional community-like general pulmonary rotation providing a mixture of ambulatory, inpatient, and procedural pulmonary experiences in service of regional military veterans.

Ambulatory Training:
Fellows maintain a weekly half day continuity clinic at either the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center or the MUSC Rutledge Tower Clinic for the first 2 years of fellowship training. During the final year, fellows can choose an ambulatory faculty mentor to work with for 6-month intervals in subspecialty pulmonary clinics.

Additional Ambulatory Rotation Experiences Include:

• General Pulmonary
• Interstitial Lung Diseases and Sarcoidosis
• Pulmonary Hypertension
• Pulmonary Infectious Diseases
• Thoracic Oncology
• Sleep Medicine

The Pulmonary and Critical Care fellowship program offers a comprehensive longitudinal curriculum consisting of core topics aimed at ABIM board preparation in pulmonary medicine and critical care medicine. Daily conferences are held at noon in the division conference room and are well supported, mentored, and attended by faculty members. Fellows have protected time from clinical duties for educational conferences. The conference schedule features a nice mix of didactic content from expert faculty, clinical case-based learning, scientific methodology, and multidisciplinary collaboration.

Educational Conferences include:

• Pulmonary Core Didactics
• Critical Care Core Didactics
• Clinical Case Conference
• Journal Club
• Research Works-in-Progress

Multidisciplinary Conferences include:

• Critical Care Grand Rounds
• Morbidity and Mortality Conference
• Interstitial Lung Disease Conference
• Pulmonary/Cardiology Joint Case Conference
• Thoracic Tumor Boards
• Multidisciplinary Sleep Case Conference
• Sleep Journal Club