The Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship is the only program of its type in Arizona. The fellowship has been accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education since 2011 and the first fellows started in 2012.
Fellows achieve the goals and objectives of the program through direct patient care, supervising other trainees and completing a comprehensive curriculum, including conferences, didactic lectures, courses, hands-on learning activities, and workshops.
Phoenix Children's has 48 PICU beds, 48 CVICU beds, and is a Level-I pediatric trauma center. On average 2,700 patients are admitted to the PICU each year while 1,000 patients are admitted to the separate CVICU. The postgraduate medical education program has three core residency programs, sixteen ACGME-accredited fellowships, and eleven non-ACGME accredited programs.
Admissions to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) originate from the Phoenix Children’s Emergency Department, or hospital wards, from elective and emergent surgeries, trauma services, or from neighboring communities and states. Growing understanding of the varied backgrounds, beliefs and circumstances is of great importance in the PICU and CVICU to optimize the patient and family care experience at the hospital.
In the PICU, fellows take care of the typical variety of patients as well as a large spectrum of complex disease processes. The hospital’s association with Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center allows fellows to take care of a variety of patients with neurological disorders such as traumatic brain injury, tumor surgery, craniosynostosis repair, and epilepsy surgery. Fellows work with various transplant populations, including liver, kidney, heart, and bone marrow. Fellows provide care to many patients with toxic ingestions and overdoses.
In the CVICU, fellows care for patients with complex congenital heart disease, with an emphasis on single ventricle patients due to the single ventricle program at Phoenix Children’s. Phoenix Children’s also has a very active ECLS program, which provides fellows with the experience of caring for multiple patients on either VA or VV ECMO simultaneously as well as managing eCPR emergencies. Fellows deal with patients requiring ventricular assist devices such as Centrimag/Pedimag, Berlin heart, Heartmate III, and total artificial heart (Syncardia).
Intensivists provide in-house, around-the-clock coverage of critically ill patients with nurse practitioners and fellows assisting in care. Pediatric Critical Care Medicine provides an important training ground for residents in the Phoenix Children’s Pediatric Residency Program Alliance.
Program Description and Goals
Mission Statement
The aim of the program is to train fellows to become the future generation of critical care physicians who will provide skilled clinical care to critically ill and injured children, advance the science through research and innovation, and develop skills to educate other physicians and health care providers. The program hopes to train caring, humanistic physicians who will serve as future leaders in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.
About the Program
First is the dedicated neurocritical care service that works side by side in the PICU to teach and provides optimal care to patients with a plethora of neurologic injuries including things like stroke, severe TBI, aneurysm rupture, spinal cord injury, and severe refractory status epilepticus. The PICU uses multimodal monitoring, 24/7 available integrated continuous video EEG, transcranial dopplers, and cutting-edge neurologic interventions. Second, as the only dedicated children’s hospital in Arizona, Phoenix Children’s has more than 75 pediatric subspecialties available to patients, which allows physicians to care for anything and everything that arrives to the PICU from the hospital’s enormous catchment area. Typical ICU cases are readily available because, as part of its mission to be the center for excellence for the state of Arizona, Phoenix Children’s admits all patient populations.
Those who will thrive are those whose principal focus is to provide the best care to pediatric ICU patients and their families. They can adapt to changes in the curriculum and system because the division and fellowship are always adding to and adjusting to best meet the needs of the trainees. They will develop lifelong friendships with their attendings and peers. They love to learn by doing and evaluating their actions with people they trust to elevate them to their highest potential.
The program understands that there is a whole world outside of the hospital doors and wants its fellows to enjoy the beauty and diversity that Arizona has to offer while they are here.
Application
How to Apply
The program only considers applications received through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) and participates in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP).
Please direct all questions and inquiries to Vincent Curley, the Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program Administrator.
Contact
Renee L. Devor, MD
Program Director
rdevor [at] phoenixchildrens.com (rdevor[at]phoenixchildrens[dot]com)
Vincent J. Curley
Program Administrator
vcurley [at] phoenixchildrens.com (vcurley[at]phoenixchildrens[dot]com)
602-933-2121