Surgical Critical Care Fellowship

The one-year ACGME accredited surgical critical care fellowship program encompasses all aspects of care of the critically ill surgical patient, with emphasis on cardiopulmonary mechanics, principles of resuscitation, and mechanical ventilation. University of Cincinnati Medical Center is the primary teaching facility for the surgical critical care fellowship. It is the tertiary referral hospital for southern Ohio, eastern Indiana, and northern Kentucky, serving a population of over 2 million with over 90,000 emergency department visits annually. The hospital also maintains the only verified adult Level 1 trauma center and adult burn center for the regions of Southwest Ohio, Eastern Indiana and Northern Kentucky.

University of Cincinnati Medical Center has approximately 100 adult critical care beds, distributed through the surgical, medical, neuroscience, and cardiovascular intensive care units. The SICU consists of 34 adult beds with 150-170 monthly admissions from all surgical specialties, including trauma, general surgery, transplantation, surgical oncology, vascular surgery, urology, ENT, thoracic surgery, obstetrics/gynecology and ENT. Daily multidisciplinary rounds are collaborative in nature, with input and discussion from all team members, including respiratory therapists, pharmacists, nurses, Subspecialty services, such as nephrology, infectious disease, rehabilitation medicine, cardiology, and hematology are available and consulted as needed. Additional clinical support in the SICU includes nutrition services, nurse educator, and dedicated SICU social worker.

The SICU at University of Cincinnati Medical Center serves as a critical care educational venue for residents not only from numerous specialties but also from other local and regional institutions. Other required critical care rotations include the Neurocritical care unit, Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, and the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The NSICU is a 20 bed unit with neurosurgical admissions following tumor and skull base surgery, spine surgery, advanced neurovascular interventions, and traumatic brain injury. As the region’s stroke center, patients undergoing state of the art therapy for stroke, seizures, and other neurologic diseases are also cared for in the NSICU. Patients in the CVICU include post-operative patients as well as those with heart failure and acute coronary disease. ECMO and LVAD are supported as well.

The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in the renowned Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center is a 36 bed multidisciplinary unit for children beyond the newborn age with over 2000 combined medical and surgical admissions annually. I addition to pediatric trauma patients other PICU admissions include neurosurgical, airway reconstructive surgery, solid organ transplantation, and orthopedic patients. All forms of mechanical ventilatory support, including liquid ventilation and high frequency ventilation, renal dialysis, continuous veno-venous / veno-arterial ultrafiltration, and ECMO are available and employed as support modalities in the PICU.

Other venues for critical care education include the other adult units at University of Cincinnati Medical Center (Medical, and Adult Burns) and the pediatric Shriner’s Burn Institute. These can be arranged according to fellow interest and availability. Experience in trauma surgery is also offered and encouraged during the one-year fellowship through elective rotations.

The surgical critical care fellowship was reviewed by the ACGME in 2016 and was granted Continued Full Accreditation. Options for extending the fellowship for a second, non-ACGME accredited year are available and include acute care surgery, trauma, and advanced research and educational opportunities. Second year positions will be considered on an individual basis depending on funding.

Program Administration: Krishna Athota, MD, Program Director