The Critical Care Fellowship program selects the best qualified candidates regardless of race, sex, creed, color, national origin, handicap or age. The program does not participate in the NRMP Match. Candidate requirements include:

• A completed application form through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).
• Letter of recommendation from applicant’s current program director.
• Recommendation letters from two faculty members.
• Personal Statement.
• ECFMG certification, if applicable.
• Copy of USMLE score.
• Most current Curriculum Vitae.

Based upon the above criteria, a personal interview may be scheduled. Final selection or ranking of candidates are made by the Critical Care Selection Committee. Criteria utilized by the committee for selection are academic achievement, clinical competence, moral and ethical qualities, compassion, social responsibility, collegiality, and enthusiasm.

Marcie Hudson
Program Coordinator
Saint Luke’s Hospital
Medical Education
4401 Wornall Road
Kansas City, Mo. 64111

Saint Luke’s Hospital
4401 Wornall Road
Kansas City, MO 64111

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The UMKC School of Medicine Critical Care Medicine Fellowship is a two-year program; alternatively, internists with ABIM certification in a qualified Internal Medicine subspecialty (e.g., Pulmonary, Nephrology, Cardiology, Hematology, Infectious Disease) are eligible for 1 year of Critical Care Medicine training. Our program offers both 1- and 2-year positions based on availability.

Our Critical Care Medicine Fellowship program is designed to train clinically competent and scholarly Intensivists. The Fellows’ time is spent at Saint Luke’s Hospital and University Health Truman Medical Center, both primary teaching hospitals for the UMKC School of Medicine. While the program emphasizes clinical experience, clinical and/or basic science research activity is required. Fellows are expected to vigorously pursue teaching medical students and residents with the aim of becoming excellent clinician educators. Regularly scheduled conference presentations by the Fellows are included in this teaching responsibility.

Campuses:

Saint Lukes’s Hospital (SLH):
SLH is a designated Level I Trauma, Stroke, and STEMI Center by the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services. SLH has the region’s longest continuously operating, adult heart transplant program, and one of the nation’s top 25 cardiology and heart surgery programs, at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute. SLH also provides treatment for complex brain and spinal cord diseases, and the nation’s leading stroke reversal program dedicated to preventing and treating stroke, at the nationally ranked Saint Luke’s Marion Bloch Neuroscience Institute. SLH also has a very successful liver and kidney transplantation programs which continues to grow.

The critical care services at SLH are provided in four different closed ICUs with 24/7 intensivists coverage; the Medical Surgery Trauma ICU (MSTICU), the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU), the Neurosurgical ICU (NSICU), and the Cardiovascular ICU (CVICU). The CVICU and CCU provide services for cardiac and cardiothoracic surgery patients and other critically ill patients. These services include temporary hemodynamic support devices like VV and VA ECMO, IMPELLA system, Tandem Heart, and IABP. Another unique opportunity for fellows is the availability of Tele Critical Care services at SLH, fellows can visit our site and get familiar with the service. TCC is an innovative electronic intensive care patient care and monitoring program that spans multiple hospitals throughout the region and enhances outstanding bedside care.

University Health Truman Medical Center (UHTMC):
UHTMC is where fellows spend 25% of their training and do their inhouse calls. UHTMC has two closed ICUs, the Medical ICU and surgery trauma ICU. UHTMC is one of the busiest adult emergency room in the Kansas City metropolitan area with more than 60,000 visits a year. It is the main campus for the UMKC, and some residency programs like Emergency Medicine. UHTMC consists of 194 beds, equipped with diverse fields of services with diverse ICU patent population.

Rotations:

ICU rotations: MSTICU, CCU, CVICU, NSICU
The first- or second-year fellow works under the direct supervision of a critical care medicine faculty member at ICUs in either Saint Luke’s Hospital or University Health Truman Medical Center. The fellow supervises 2-4 residents from Internal Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Anesthesiology or Family Medicine. The fellow takes an active role in patient management on these very busy services. The fellow will provide initial and ongoing consultative service and work closely with the residents, critical care Advanced Practice Providers (APP) and faculty members. The fellow manages approximately 15 new consults or admissions per week and follows up to 25 inpatients at any given time. The fellow takes pager call from home and is responsible for inpatient care no more than two weekends a month.

The critical care fellows are not expected to write routine daily notes on MSTICU or CCU patients, these are usually done by the rounding residents. This should give time for fellows to focus on high level decisions and help team members when needed. The MSTICUs are busy and will provide fellows with opportunities to manage complex variety of critical ill patients with medical, surgical and trauma emergencies. In the CVICU and CCU this will include managing patients on ECMO, IABP LVAD and IMPELLA devices. The fellows will also get the opportunity to place and monitor pulmonary artery catheters. In the neuro ICU, fellows will be able to manage neurocritical care emergencies and get training on ICP monitoring.

Electives:

Fellows will have several flexible options for their electives. These include Nephrology, Infectious Disease, CNS diagnostic radiology, Abdominal diagnostic radiology, PICC line service, and CVOR with TEE training. Also, fellows will be given the opportunity to visit our Tele Critical Care site to get familiar with this unique and expanding innovation.

Rotation schedule:

2-Year Fellowship Curriculum

Year 1
4 Months MSTICU/CCU – Saint Luke’s Hospital
1 Month CVICU – Saint Luke’s Hospital
1 Month NSICU – Saint Luke’s Hospital
1 Month Anesthesia – Saint Luke’s Hospital
2 Months ICU – University Health Truman Medical Center
1 Month Trauma Critical Care – University Health Truman Medical Center
6 weeks of Research– Saint Luke’s Hospital
2 Weeks of Echocardiography – Saint Luke’s Hospital

Year 2
4 Months MSTICU/CCU – Saint Luke’s Hospital
1 Month CVICU – Saint Luke’s Hospital
1 Month NSICU – Saint- Luke’s Hospital
2 Months Elective (ID, Nephrology, Research or potentially others) – Saint Luke’s Hospital
2 Months ICU – University Health Truman Medical Center
6 weeks of Research – Saint Luke’s Hospital
2 weeks of Echocardiography– Saint Luke’s Hospital

1-Year Fellowship Curriculum

4 Months MSTICU/CCU – Saint Luke’s Hospital
2 Months ICU- University Health Truman Medical Center
1 Month CVICU – Saint Luke’s Hospital
1 Month NSICU – Saint Luke’s Hospital
1 Month Anesthesia – Saint Luke’s Hospital
1 Month Trauma Critical Care – University Health Truman Medical Center
6 weeks if Research – Saint Luke’s Hospital
2 Weeks of Echocardiography – Saint Luke’s Hospital

Procedures:

Critical care fellows do all procedures to their patients in our closed ICUs including; all intubations, central lines, arterial lines, pulmonary artery catheters, bronchoscopies, Lumbar punctures, chest tubes, and thoracenteses. We also utilize the ultrasound (POCUS, POCECHO, etc..) daily in our program for volume responsiveness, to evaluate shock, assess pleural disease, and guide procedures.

Calls:

The two Critical Care fellows share the night calls at TMC ICU with the 9 pulmonary critical care fellows. Critical care fellows do about 30 calls per year, or every 10th on average. These calls are either in person or pager calls from home depending on the training and comfort level on the inhouse ICU resident.

Didactics and conferences:

We have monthly didactics in two main blocks. One is three-hour block on the first Wednesday of every month, and the second is an hour block on the last Wednesday. In addition, fellows are encouraged to attend monthly MSTICU meeting when Case Conference (M&M) s presented by the fellow or another team member. Also, fellows are encouraged to attend monthly Internal Medicine grand rounds, and quarterly critical care Evidence Practice (EPT) Team meetings.

In addition, critical care faculty will provide fellow level teaching at the beside including volume assessment, POC ECHO, POC US, ventilator settings and asynchrony, Pulmonary Artery Catheter monitoring, and evidence-based practice.

Research:

The fellow works with a faculty member of his or her choice. It is the fellows’ responsibility to identify a faculty member to collaborate with. The research project(s) must be approved by the program director. Minimum expectation for the fellow is to publish research abstract at one of the critical care conferences during their training and to submit a research manuscript by the end of the two years of training.

Evaluation:

A. Formative evaluation
The fellow is evaluated each month of the 24-month fellowship. Evaluations will be in line with currently accepted ACGME Milestones. The following areas are evaluated:

Clinical judgment
Clinical skills
Medical knowledge
Humanistic qualities
Commitment to scholarship
Medical care
Professional attitudes
Behavior
Clinical competence

The fellow is evaluated in these areas each month and the performance is reviewed and discussed by the attending that month. Semi-annually the fellow receives structured feedback from the program director. The performance is reviewed with appropriate counseling and any necessary remedial actions

B. Summative evaluation
Semi-annually the program director completes a written evaluation of each fellow based upon review of monthly evaluations. These evaluations stipulate the degree to which the fellow has mastered each component of clinical competence and has acquired proficiency in each of the required procedural skills. Fellows may appeal judgments of academic deficiencies or misconduct. See Disciplinary Action Policy located on the UMKC website at https://www.med.umkc.edu/residency/graduate/links.html.

C. Evaluation of Faculty and Program
The fellow evaluates each rotation monthly and provides confidential feedback to the program director on the performance of the faculty and merits and deficiencies in the training program. The teaching staff meets with the fellow semi-annually to evaluate the utilization of the resources available to the program, the contribution of SLH and TMC to the program, financial and administrative support., volume and variety of patients available to the program for educational purposes, the performance of members of the teaching staff, the quality of supervision of fellows, and the effectiveness of the program in achieving the stated goals and objectives.

Application Information:

The Critical Care Fellowship program selects the best qualified candidates regardless of race, sex, creed, color, national origin, handicap or age. The program will participate in the NRMP Match starting 2021-2022 application cycle. Candidate requirements include:

A completed application form through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).
Letter of recommendation from applicant’s current program director.
Recommendation letters from two faculty members.
Personal Statement.
ECFMG certification, if applicable.
Copy of USMLE score.
Most current Curriculum Vitae.

Based upon the above criteria, a personal interview may be scheduled. Final selection or ranking of candidates are made by the Critical Care Selection Committee. Criteria utilized by the committee for selection are academic achievement, clinical competence, moral and ethical qualities, compassion, social responsibility, collegiality, and enthusiasm.

Marcie Cox
Program Coordinator
Saint Luke’s Hospital
Medical Education
4401 Wornall Road
Kansas City, Mo. 64111

Welcome

Welcome to the Critical Care Fellowship program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. I hope you will find the information on this Web site helpful as you seek the fellowship program that best meets your needs.

If you are serious about learning Critical Care Medicine and providing the best care for your patients, I invite you to examine our program and consider participating in our application process. Every year we will select one fellow into our program to work with patients in various settings ranging from a highly-respected tertiary care referral center for patients in a six-state region with an international reputation for state-of-the-art care to a busy inner-city general hospital treating a diverse population.

Our program provides a clinical and scholarly approach to training in Critical Care Medicine. Thank you for taking the time to visit us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Majdi Hamarshi, MD, FCCP, FCCM
Associate Professor
Program Director

Mission Statement:

“The Critical Care Program serves Kansas City and the Midwest Region and strives to provide our graduates with the necessary tools to work in a wide range of practice models. This is done by giving Fellows experience across a range of Intensive Care Unit settings in both a tertiary/quaternary referral center and a community hospital that cares for underserved populations as well.  Our graduates will have the skill sets needed to enjoy a very fulfilling career in critical care, whether they decide to become clinician educators, enter a private practice, or pursue an academic pathway.”