The Surgical Critical Care Fellowship is an ACGME/RRC approved training program, whose goal is to educate fellows in the advanced care of critically ill and injured patients. Rotational experience includes trauma, cardiac, burn and pediatric, as well as general surgical critical care. The broad experience gained through diverse faculty and programmatic elements should prepare the fellow for board examinations as well as a career in either academic or private practice.

The fellowship is designed to provide the critical care resident (CCR) with an education in the principles and practice of state-of-the art surgical critical care. This is accomplished by exposing the CCR to a broad array of surgical illnesses through teaching rounds, primary patient care, educational conferences, and specialized rotations. Upon completion of training, the CCR is expected to demonstrate proficiency in surgical critical care decision making, specific organ system support, evaluation of new technology and treatment techniques, ICU administration, outcomes assessment, research design, and interaction with patients, families and health care personnel. These clinical goals will be accomplished by providing the CCR with a position dedicated to the intensive care units at Denver Health Medical Center (DHMC), The Children’s Hospital of Denver (TCH), and the University of Colorado Hospital (UCHSC).

The fellowship is devoted to patient care, with didactic, clinical and research components. CCR training will consist of 12 months: eight months dedicated to general surgical critical care, one month in pediatric critical care, one month in burn critical care, one month in cardiothoracic critical care, and one month in research. The clinical component includes experience gained by direct patient responsibility under supervision of teaching faculty, and independent study on relevant topics.

The didactic component includes taking part in multidisciplinary critical care rounds with the DHMC surgical attendings, surgical housestaff, trauma coordinators, social workers and attending physicians in Neurosurgery and Infectious Disease three times a week. Additionally, daily teaching rounds on all surgical ICU patients are conducted by a general surgery/trauma/critical care attending. There is a monthly multidisciplinary critical care conference, which includes lectures by outside experts on a wide range of critical care topics. Other didactic elements include Morbidity and Mortality Conference, Surgical Grand Rounds, and Ethics Conference.

Research may be conducted on a variety of critical care projects, and the opportunity to take master’s level classes at the UCHSC in biostatistics and research methods exists. There is a weekly multidisciplinary research conference, which focuses on basic science and critical care research.