Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship
Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship
The Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship offers a comprehensive training experience with a diverse clinical service, a structured research experience and a thorough academic curriculum.
The mission of the Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program at Nationwide Children's Hospital is to train the next generation of well-rounded pediatric critical care physicians and future leaders of our field. Competitive trainees will choose our program for its high volume and acuity, depth & breadth of educational content, and equal focus on the pillars of excellence in clinical care, quality improvement, education and science. We strive to produce pediatric intensivists who are fully invested in our diverse population of patients and families, who provide hands-on education to trainees, and who contribute innovative and meaningful science to the field of pediatric critical care.
The Intensive Care Units at Nationwide Children's Hospital include 54 PICU beds and 20 Cardiothoracic ICU beds, combining for approximately 3,000 admissions per year. Led by 25 critical care faculty, our PICU team cares for children from all medical and surgical hospital services. Our cardiothoracic ICU is led by a team of eight cardiac intensivists, many with dual certification in cardiology and critical care medicine. Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, Level 1 trauma and burn care, and surgical management of complex congenital heart disease are among the treatments available to patients at Nationwide Children's Hospital along with heart, lung, heart/lung, kidney, liver and bone marrow transplantation.
The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, our on-site state of the art research facility, is in the top 10 in NIH funding among children's hospitals and serves as a home to more than 160 principal investigators engaging in basic, translational and clinical research. Additionally, our academic partnership with The Ohio State University allows for myriad research and clinical collaborative opportunities.
The three-year training program is divided into 19 clinical months, 15 research months and two elective months. The block schedule for the entire training program is weighted toward clinical time in the first year with more research time and flexibility in the second and third years. There is minimal call during research months. On-call time is spent exclusively in-house and will be no more than every fourth night on average. We are committed to providing a supportive learning environment through strict adherence to the duty hours limitations set forth by the ACGME.
Upon successful completion of the program, the fellow has met the training requirements for Pediatric Critical Care Medicine certification by the American Board of Pediatrics.
What You Need to Know
Didactic Education
Fellows receive robust didactic education with a diversity of styles and presentations. In the beginning of the academic year, our twice weekly “Survival Series,” targeted to first-year fellows, focuses on the most common and high-yield PCCM topics. Fellows also enjoy 2 hours of protected conference time each week, on a broad array of topics relevant to critical care medicine, presented by both divisional faculty and experts in other fields. Additional educational offerings include Neurocritical Care Conference, Board Review Sessions, ED/PICU Conference, Journal Club, and Morbidity & Mortality Conferences. Fellows will gain experience in organizing and presenting journal clubs with a variety of topics and formats. Additionally, a GME-wide “fellows college” will cover topics relevant to all pediatric subspecialties, including wellness and resilience, time management, managing interpersonal conflict, and job search negotiations.
Simulation
Teamwork and communication are paramount in the pediatric intensive care unit, where intensivists must prioritize and coordinate care for critically ill patients with complex medical problems, often in a high stress environment. In situ simulation allows participants to experience a medical crisis in their actual work setting and learn from any mistakes without harm occurring to a patient.
Pediatric critical care fellows at Nationwide Children's Hospital have ample exposure to inter-professional teamwork training through monthly, code team leader simulation sessions where they experience a vast array of clinical scenarios. They gain procedural expertise via task trainers that are utilized for teaching skills such as advanced airway management, central line placement and chest tube insertion. First year critical care fellows also attend a multi-institutional, high-fidelity simulation "boot camp" training program, where they participate in numerous code scenarios with other critical care fellows from across the country: all with the purpose of improving their teamwork and communication skills, as well as their confidence in being a code team leader. First year fellows will also participate in an interdisciplinary “Difficult Airway Bootcamp” that relies heavily on high fidelity simulation.
Research Education
The cornerstone of the PCCM fellows’ research experience is the Abigail Wexner Research Institute (AWRI) at Nationwide Children's Hospital. Please see the AWRI website for more detailed information, but briefly:
- Administratively, the AWRI is divided into Centers of Emphasis including Biobehavioral Health, Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Research, Childhood Cancer, Gene Therapy, Injury Research and Policy, Innovation in Pediatric Practice, Microbial Pathogenesis, Molecular and Human Genetics, Perinatal Research, the Battelle Center for Mathematical Medicine, Vaccines and Immunity, Clinical and Translational Research, Genomic Medicine and Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research. Each of these centers encompasses research topics which are relevant to Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.
- The AWRI also has core facilities which offer the following state-of-the-art services to researchers: Biostatistics, DNA Sequencing, Functional Genomics, High Throughput Genotyping and Sequencing, Morphology, Flow Cytometry, Clinical Research Services, Transgenic and Embryonic Stem Cell, and Viral Vector.
- The AWRI boasts more than 160 Principal Investigators, 1,000 employees and occupies more than 800,000 square feet of research space. Research faculty members also hold faculty appointments at The Ohio State University. Should a fellow’s area of interest lie outside the scope of AWRI, resources of the general university academic community can be made available.
Learn more about the fellows' clinical training and research experience
Outcomes
Nationwide Children's Hospital has consistently held the lowest severity-adjusted mortality rate among our peer institutions in a national benchmarking database. This means many children who would be predicted to die—by their initial illness severity—don't. There are many reasons for this, including outstanding multidisciplinary teamwork; innovative yet evidence-driven practice; and a culture of quality and safety that permeates the PICU.
Creating a safe day every day is a core value in our everyday work. Patient safety is especially important. Our PICU nosocomial infection rates are among some of the lowest in the country despite the size and acuity of our unit.
Health Equity
Achieving health equity is to achieve a state in which every patient has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health. Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine are dedicated to improving care for all intensive care patients and families by raising awareness of health and healthcare disparities that exist within the medical field, and by educating providers on topics of health equity. Learn more about our hospital’s health equity initiatives, and community engagement below.
Learn how Nationwide Children's intentionally recruits a diverse workforce
Learn more about our School-Based Health Services (Care Connection)
Fellows in our program participate in division-specific and institution-wide didactics and conferences focused on health equity topics. Additionally, Nationwide Children’s is home to the Center for Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research, which affords our fellows opportunities to conduct scholarly projects that aim to reduce healthcare disparities as well.
Global Health Fellowship Track
At Nationwide Children’s Hospital, we believe that global health is an integral function of the profession of pediatrics. In support of this, the Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine offers a unique opportunity for Pediatric Critical Care Fellows. The Global Health Track within the PCCM fellowship aims to help fellows develop the essential skills necessary to function as clinicians, educators, and researchers in low and middle income countries at the completion of training. Most academic years, our program has the capacity to admit one fellow into the track every other year (i.e., no more than 2 fellows in the program at a time). Global health fellows spend up to six weeks during the first year of fellowship and up to four months in both the second and third year of fellowship abroad.
Faculty, Fellows & Alumni
Research
Research education and training are vital to the mission of Nationwide Children's Hospital and The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital. As a top-ten free-standing pediatric research center and an academic affiliate of The Ohio State University, The Research Institute has an outstanding faculty, dedicated to training and mentoring the next generation of scientists in pediatric research.
Critical Care Medicine is a leading presence in the field of pediatric critical care research.
Learn More About Critical Care Research at Nationwide Children's
Video: Research Opportunities for Clinical Trainees
Research at Nationwide Children's Hospital
Advocacy
Advocacy training fosters and encourages interest in child advocacy by early involvement and exposure to its many aspects such as addressing social determinants of health, community collaboration, health finance, health policy and legislative advocacy.
Video: Advocacy in Pediatrics | Curriculum Beyond the Clinic
Apply Now
The Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship Program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital participates in the National Residency Match Program (NRMP). Beginning July 1, applications for Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship can be submitted via the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS)
Interested applicants please review Nationwide Children’s policy on resident visa status and financial consideration, as well as Nationwide Children’s Resident Contract.
If you have specific questions relating to the application process, please feel free to contact our program coordinator:
Tricia Brown
Program Coordinator
Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship
Nationwide Children's Hospital
700 Children's Drive
Columbus, Ohio 43205-2696
Phone: (614) 722-3436
Email: Tricia.Brown@NationwideChildrens.org
Contact
For more information, please contact:
Megan Daniel, MD
Program Director
Claire Stewart, MD
Associate Program Director
Christopher Montgomery, MD
Associate Program Director for Research
Tricia Brown
Program Coordinator
Email: Tricia.Brown@NationwideChildrens.org
Phone: (614) 722-3436
