Educational Conferences and Simulations

The Critical Care Fellowship uses educational conferences and simulations to prepare fellows for a variety of real world situations.

• PICU 101:  An 8-week lecture series designed to introduce 1^st year fellows to common critical care topics led by critical care and other pediatric faculty members.  Topics include trauma management, renal replacement therapy, septic shock, cardiac arrhythmias, etc.
• Clinical Case Conference:  Weekly discussion of chronic and/or complex patients admitted to the PICU.
• Morbidity and Mortality Conference:  Monthly discussion of M & M cases with a focus on Learning Points and Up-To-Date literature presentations of relevant topics in a multi-disciplinary setting.
• Joint Pediatric Critical Care and Emergency Medicine Ultrasound Conference: Quarterly conferences taught by ultrasound trained faculty to teach technique, diagnostic utility, and application of eFAST, Vascular Access, Cardiac, and Lung Ultrasound.  The didactic course is followed by hands on ultrasound training.
• Monthly Research Conference:  Fellows participate in creation and maintenance of research timelines with a core faculty group providing research check-ins and guidance on study design, implementation, and submission for presentation and publication.
• PCCM Board Review:  Monthly fellow-led discussion of board-style questions with faculty presence to facilitate relevant discussion and clinical application.
• Respiratory Physiology Review:  Monthly discussion of West’s Respiratory Physiology led by faculty and fellow pairs to provide in-depth discussion of respiratory physiology as well as review board-style questions.
• Research and Quality Improvement Conference:  Monthly conference led by PCCM faculty to discuss current research and QI initiatives in the PICU.  Fellows and faculty use this platform to discuss new and ongoing projects to allow for feedback from the division.
• Journal Club:  Monthly conference to discuss a variety of critical care topics, with critical appraisal of articles and discussion of practice relevance.
• Faculty Development Lunch and Learn Conference:  Monthly Conference promoting skills such as Effective Teaching Strategies, Wellness, Diversity, and Research.
• PICU High-Fidelity Simulations:  In the PICU, we frequently encounter patients that are acutely decompensating, require resuscitation, or need evolving management for a potentially life-threatening issue. In these situations, each healthcare provider has one’s individual role, but the patient gets the best and most effective care when we integrally work together as a team in a coordinated effort. This does not happen without practice and developing a sort of “muscle memory”.  These simulations involve bedside nurses, team leaders, respiratory therapists, ECMO specialists, APPs, fellows, attendings, amongst others.

CVICU High-Fidelity Simulations:  Simulations focused on cases with cardiac physiology.  Fellows participate in these during their CVICU rotations.

Delivering Difficult News Simulations:  Utilization of standardized participants (usually acting in the role of a parent or caregiver) to deliver and receive feedback on a variety of scenarios.

Difficult Airway Simulations:  A yearly course, led by pediatric anesthesiologists to provide additional instruction on securing a difficult airway as well as tracheostomy placement.