Surgical Critical Care Fellowship

The Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at Reading Hospital prepares eligible learners to sit for, and pass the Surgical Critical Care Certifying Examination, administered by the American Board of Surgery. The program focuses on the management of critically ill patients in the surgical intensive care unit, as well as the trauma resuscitation area of the emergency department. An intense bedside experience in a 21-bed ICU is anchored by a faculty of nine full-time surgical intensivists, with twelve supporting advanced practitioners and a full complement of surgical residents. Fellows in the program will spend nine months in the intensive care unit, and at least two months in the trauma service, with one elective month to explore alternate acute care surgery or other related specialties.

Fellows spend at least eight months at Reading Hospital, in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Up to four months of the year are spent at affiliated sites in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, including one SCC month at The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, (HUP) and one at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center (PPMC). A month of Pediatric Surgical Critical Care at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia is also standard. An elective month can be taken at Reading, one of our affiliated sites, or elsewhere in select cases.

Fellows benefit from dedicated didactic sessions while at Reading Hospital, as well as the educational programming conducted by our affiliated sites. These sessions include a weekly lecture based on the Decker Curriculum, a monthly Surgical Critical Care Journal Club, and the Department of Surgery M&M twice per month. Fellows get experience in quality and performance improvement through the trauma and acute care surgery peer review meetings. They also benefit from Critical Care Grand Rounds, which will include all aspects of critical care, including neurocritical care and medical critical care. The fellows will be expected to give Critical Care Grand Rounds once during their year of training.

Prior to graduation, fellows are required to perform scholarly activity which may come in the form of both quality improvement and research projects. The full gamut of resources at Reading Hospital will be at the fellows' disposal to fulfill this requirement. Fellows will get experience in developing or updating a clinical management guideline during the year, including literature review, crafting the document, and finally education and implementation management.