Fellowship Program
Mission Statement
The overarching mission of our Pediatric Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) Fellowship Program is to develop the next generation of academic leaders in the field of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. Our program aims to train each fellow to provide exceptional care of critically ill children, become proficient medical educators and develop discovery-based careers in academic medicine.
Overview
The Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program at Stanford University is an ACGME-accredited 3-year training program with an annual program size of 14 fellows. We offer a 2-year training program for eligible applicants who have completed scholarly activity in a prior ACGME-accredited subspecialty program.
Clinical training occurs at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford (LPCH), a quaternary free-standing pediatric center. Trainees will have extensive clinical exposure through rotations in both the 36-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and 36-bed Cardiovascular Intensive Care Units (CVICU) with an estimated 2,100 PICU and 1,200 CVICU admissions annually for critically ill, high-complexity patients. The PICU provides critical care services for all subspecialties with very active programs in neurocritical care, airway reconstruction, solid-organ and stem cell transplantation and Level 1 trauma amongst others. The CVICU provide critical care services for a full spectrum of pediatric cardiac disease, including over 500 postoperative patients per year following cardiopulmonary bypass with robust and nationally-recognized congenital heart, electrophysiology and heart failure programs.
We prepare trainees for careers as academic clinician-scientists or clinician-educators in pediatric critical care medicine. Trainees generally complete 18 months of clinical training and 18 months of research and scholarly activity during their three-year fellowship. Over the course of their training, fellows are exposed to traditional bedside and didactic teaching, procedural skills using ultrasound- or video-guidance, hi-fidelity simulation programs, and web-based learning modules. As fellows advance through the training program, they attain progressively higher levels of autonomy and responsibility.
The first year of fellowship training is focused primarily upon the acquisition of a strong clinical foundation. At the conclusion of the first year, trainees will be able to generate comprehensive differential diagnosis, develop data-driven treatment plans and direct the management of a full spectrum of patients with critical illness. During subsequent training years, fellows further refine their skills, but clinical service time decreases significantly as they transition their focus to developing discovery-based careers through their scholarly activities. With faculty mentorship and additional training opportunities, fellows are also well equipped to be leaders within education, advocacy, clinical effectiveness, and quality improvement.
In keeping with the vision of Stanford University School of Medicine to fuel innovation and transform patient care, all fellows pursue hypothesis-driven scholarly activities and research during their fellowship. We encourage fellows to pursue their passion and value diversity in scholarly interests. Trainees explore opportunities in the remarkably rich multidisciplinary Stanford University community of biologic and non-biologic scientists (e.g. education, policy, economics, medical humanities, engineering). With guidance from Stanford faculty, first-year fellows identify a research mentor and project earlier in their first year. Scholarship oversight committees monitor the progress of the fellow's scholarly activity semi-annually. Fellows are expected to submit for publication a peer-reviewed manuscript of their academic work by the completion of the fellowship.
With a strong emphasis on both clinical excellence and scientific discovery, our fellowship program is dedicated to training academic pediatric intensivists who provide the highest level of care to critically ill patients, and who are committed to the creation of new knowledge to better understand pediatric critical illness. Our fellowship training program provides a collegial, supportive environment, while still ensuring that fellows are able to realize even their most ambitious career aspirations.
Additional information also can be found at the Department of Pediatrics website: https://med.stanford.edu/pedsfellowships.html