Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship Program
Dear Applicant:
Thank you for inquiring about the Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship Program at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGH, Massachusetts General Hospital) for 2007. The following description should help to give you some understanding of the structure and function of the Pediatric Critical Care Program.
The training program is designed to support four to six clinical fellows following the track to certification by the Sub-board of Pediatric Critical Care at the American Board of Pediatrics. The goals of the program are to facilitate the fellows learning environment so they become expert practitioners in the most current ICU modalities. Attendings seek to mentor fellows into assuming key leadership positions in coordinating the care of residents, interns, consults, nursing staff and other support services. Many of our graduates have gone on to open their own units and become direc-tors.
The first year is ordinarily spent becoming proficient in the clinical management of critically ill chil-dren and the training focuses on neonates to young adults. The fellows work an average of eight nights on call each month. The second year the on call time is reduced and the third year is primar-ily devoted to research.
The service provides community hospitals with a transport service for their critically ill children to be brought to our facility. The fellows are responsible for coordinating that team and in consultation with the attending, medically managing the child's care throughout the transport.
The mission of the Massachusetts General Hospital is excellence in patient care, education and re-search and a vast number of opportunities are open to you along these avenues, only a few of which I will describe. Daily teaching rounds are held with the entire ICU team. It is expected that the fellow on duty attend and provide active leadership role during them, making critical decisions regarding the plan of care. X-ray rounds are also held daily, lead by the Pediatric Radiology staff. It is the combined responsibility of the fellows and attendings to plan and present daily conferences for the interns and residents. Two Fellows’ Conferences per week are held which provides an oppor-tunity to review in-depth physiology and highly complex cases. A copy of the schedule for one of these conferences is attached. Monthly Morbidity and Mortality Rounds are the responsibility of the Fellows to prepare for and present. The Ethics Department is very active, and the Committee may be consulted by any member of the team. The above-listed learning opportunities are those spe-cific to the ICU, there are many more that you are encouraged to attend. Transplant, Trauma, Grand Rounds, Anesthesia Conferences are but a few available to you.
While the Critical Care Fellows are focused on developing clinical expertise during their first year of fellowship, you are expected to identify your research question and contact potential research ad-visors. This ensures you have adequate time in which to begin your research in the second year and gives approximately 20 months for data collection and analysis. Research opportunities are not lim-ited to those found in the laboratories of the members of the Department of Pediatrics. Previous trainees have done theirs in conjunction with Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Harvard Uni-versity. The area is selected by the trainee and negotiated with the Chief of Critical Care Medicine during the first year. Opportunities range from pure clinical research to molecular biology.
The program is ordinarily planned for three years and meets the requirement for the Pediatric Critical Care Sub-specialty Boards. However, we welcome candidates wishing to discuss other fellowship options who do not want to pursue such certification. Although we arrange to support the full fel-lowship training years, we expect fellows to explore external funding for the research years and assist them in these efforts. This is a useful experience and has been successful.
I have enclosed an application. You can obtain more information about MassGeneral Hospital for Children on line at www.massgeneral.org/MGHfc . We look forward to receiving your completed application in the near future. Please supply us with three letters of references from your supervisors who know you well and would be willing to do so. When you return the application, it would be use-ful if you let us know how the program may be tailored to your interests. We will be pleased to ar-range for you to visit us and meet with the faculty.
I look forward to hearing from you and would be happy to talk to you about this academically chal-lenging environment and the future of Pediatric Intensive Care Medicine. Please send your applica-tion and references to my attention at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Sincerely yours,
Natan Noviski, MD
Chief, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
Fellowship Program Director
