Critical Care Medicine: Anesthesiology Fellowship

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center provides 2 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited fellowship programs in critical care:

  • The Critical Care Medicine: Anesthesiology Fellowship is a program for individuals who are board eligible (BE)/board certified (BC) in anesthesiology. Individuals BC/BE in general surgery are also encouraged to apply to the anesthesiology-based program, as this track allows one to meet requirements to become BC/BE under the American Board of Surgery. The director of the anesthesia/critical care medicine fellowship program is Matthew D. Koff, MD.
  • The Critical Care Medicine: Internal Medicine Fellowship is a program for individuals BC/BE in Internal Medicine or Emergency Medicine. The director of the internal medicine/critical care medicine fellowship program is Jeffrey C. Munson, MD. There are a total of 7 critical care fellowship positions per year. The fellowship positions are divided among individuals with anesthesia, internal medicine, and surgery training.
    In addition, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center offers a 3-year Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship, directed by Harold L. Manning, MD.

Mission

Our mission is to guide and educate physicians as they develop the skills and expertise to provide safe, high-value critical care through professional, ethical and compassionate behavior. We empower physicians to address healthcare disparities and to continuously improve their education, practice, and the community health care system as a whole.

Program aims

  • To provide training based on a multi-disciplinary philosophy of critical care that will allow graduates to excel as clinicians and educators in any critical care environment
  • To train clinicians to recognize the complex social, ethical and professional challenges prevalent in critical care, and to develop the necessary communication skills to navigate these challenges successfully as part of a high-functioning team
  • To provide training in the specific challenges that confront a primarily rural patient population
  • To provide exposure to research and quality improvement opportunities that will allow graduates to contribute as active members of academic medicine

Education

The Critical Care Fellowship is designed to foster both the clinical and the leadership skills necessary to develop and promote a multi-disciplinary approach to critical care medicine.

The specific goals of the program are to:

  • Understand the physiology and pathophysiology of critical illness
  • Evaluate and manage the critically ill patient equally across disease and discipline spectrum
    • Surgical
    • Medical
    • Neurosurgical
  • Develop the procedural skills necessary for the care of the critically ill
    • Point of care critical care ultrasound
    • Transesophageal ultrasound
    • Hemodynamics
  • Understand the administrative aspects of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) management
  • Understand ethical and legal aspects of critical care and palliative medicine
  • Understand research design and data interpretation

We are well-established and one of the original ICU fellowship programs. We have been very successful in recruiting highly qualified fellows to our program, and since 1980 we have graduated more than 50 anesthesia and critical care fellows. Concurrent with increased clinical activity, our educational program has developed and expanded over the years.

Our fellows receive training in broad-based critical care medicine across surgery and medicine. This training diversity makes our fellows uniquely marketable to any post-graduate career market. Our program is hands-on and teaches broad-based competence and independence with an engaged faculty that fosters the fellow’s growth, offering encouragement and individualized development throughout the Fellowship program.

Looking forward

The Critical Care Fellowship program continues to grow as the size and structure of our ICU grows. We continue to change with the specialty and incorporate newer trends and opportunities including teleICU, point of care Critical Care ultrasound, aeromedical transport of the critically ill patient, and ECMO. Because of their excellent academic and clinical training, our fellows successfully pass the board exams necessary for practicing critical care medicine. All our fellows find outstanding career opportunities in both academic and private healthcare facilities after graduation.