Your Clinical Experience

Fellows have a few practice settings that provide a broad context for learning. Our intensive care units are the PCICU, a 12-bed unit dedicated to the care of medical and surgical cardiac patients and the PICU, a 28-bed unit of medical patients and surgical patients – many patients are local children and some travel to Hopkins for our strong subspeciality and surgical programs. The Johns Hopkins Children’s Center is our region’s Level 1 pediatric trauma and burn center -our fellows gain experience in blunt and penetrating trauma, vascular injuries, and complex burn management from Maryland and surrounding states. We are a transplant referral center (heart, liver, kidney, and Bone Marrow Transplant) in our region. We have a busy ECMO program recognized as a ELSO Gold Center of Excellence and care for both medical and cardiac ECMO for all ages including neonates (as our NICU does not care for patients on ECM0). Fellows rotate in the PICU and PCICU as a daytime fellow, night fellow, or transport fellow. There are no shifts worked for more than 14 hours. We have an active critical care transport team that receives medical direction from the PICU – notably, our fellows provide medical direction and are the physicians on the ground and air transports for high acuity patients. This provides a strong opportunity for autonomy and collaboration with our amazing transport team. Fellow rotate in our Pediatric ORs for procedural and airway experience and are paired up with our combined Pediatric Anesthesia and Critical Care Faculty and on our Pediatric Sedation Team. Because we are a part of the Division of Pediatric Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, this collaboration is particularly strong. Finally, our fellows lead our rapid response teams and code blue teams and participate in alpha trauma activations. Our fellows have autonomy and graduated independence that creates a strong foundation to practice independently.

Your Educational Experience

We pride ourselves on a robust educational program that lead to ~6-8 hours of educational sessions per week. Our teaching sessions include fellow-specific teaching and conferences such a Program Directors Hour, Fellow’s Meeting, Attending Didactics, and Board Review. We collaborate with our emergency medicine and neonatology programs in a unique monthly Point of Care Ultrasound Series and with our cardiology fellows for PCICU rounds. Our combined faculty and fellow conferences include Research Conference, Journal Club, Neurocritical Care Conference, Morbidity and Mortality, and TWTW – The Week That Was – a fan favorite case conference. As a result, we are strong track record of in-training exam scores and passing the boards.

Your Academic Experience

Our goal is train the next generation of leaders in pediatric critical care, in a way that is authentically driven by each fellow’s interests and goals. From basic or translational science, to global health, to quality improvement, to medical education, we are able to leverage the tremendous resources of Johns Hopkins and within our department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, and the experiences and mentorship of our 30 faculty to support our fellows. Our fellows develop a true professional portfolios of a primary research project, a mentored class Quality Improvement project, educational and leadership roles in our unit and in the Children’s Hospital, and experience presenting nationally. Some fellows have pursued additional training in advance degree programs such as in the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Masters of Education for the Health Professions and Institute for Educational Excellence, and the Armstrong Institute for Quality and Safety.

Your Overall Fellow Experience

This is perhaps our greatest pride and joy – our fellows are cohesive and supportive of one another, have fun both in and outside of the hospital, whether through organized fellowship events or impromptu gatherings, and are beloved by our faculty. We believe our schedule and organization allows you to work at your highest and most productive level in fellowship but provides time to be your most important selves in your roles as a friend and family member outside of medicine.