The Critical Care Medicine Fellowship training includes patient care, procedures, elective rotations, didactic training, and teaching opportunities. The rotations consist of core clinical blocks (medical, surgical, trauma), a multitude of electives, research, and quality improvement experiences. Supervision by Mayo Clinic physicians helps you obtain educational experience that results in graduated independence while ensuring the best quality of patient care delivery.

In the two-year program, the first year includes six to nine months of critical care core rotations along with elective rotations and research. The second-year schedule is based on your career development plans. 

In the one-year program, the schedule includes a minimum of six critical care core rotations along with elective rotations and research based on your career development plans.

Rotation schedule

This is a typical rotation schedule for a two-year program (each block is approximately one month).

* Subspecialty ICU rotations include nephrology, infectious diseases, advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, neurological and neurosurgical critical care, progressive care unit, lung transplant, liver and kidney transplant, and trauma.

** Electives consist of bronchoscopy and anesthesia airway management, critical care ultrasonography and echocardiography, palliative and emergency medicine rotation, clinical nutrition, and infectious diseases consult service.

Call frequency

Your call schedule may change for each rotation. Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science follows the recommendations of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

Research and quality training

The fellows have plenty of opportunities to participate in research and quality improvement projects under the guidance and support of the Mayo Clinic Florida Acute Care Research Consortium and Quality Academy. Fellows are encouraged to pursue basic science, translational, or clinical research projects based on their own innovative ideas with support from mentors across Mayo Clinic.

You are expected to complete a research/quality project during the fellowship.

Didactic training

Didactic training is an integral part of the Critical Care Medicine Fellowship. You attend a variety of teaching sessions, conferences, and lectures. Training includes experiential learning at the J.Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Simulation Center at Mayo Clinic's campus in Jacksonville, Florida.

You are also exposed to other innovative ways of delivering education such as the use of social media platforms, video blogs, and flipped classroom models. 

During training, you participate in:

• Weekly Critical Care Medicine Grand Round
• Weekly core lectures in critical care medicine
• Weekly research conferences to review and discuss recently conducted or ongoing research projects
• Frequent journal clubs to discuss and critically evaluate recent scientific publications on basic and clinical aspects of critical care medicine
• Monthly medical ICU morbidity and mortality conference
• Quarterly quality improvement and patient safety projects
• Critical care ultrasound curriculum
• Monthly ECMO case reviews
• Weekly Medicine Grand Round
• Critical Medicine Boot Camp for basics and advanced training for critical care concepts and skills

Teaching opportunities

Opportunities are available for teaching rotating residents and medical students. You are also given the opportunity to participate in educational workshops to improve your teaching skills.

Evaluation

To ensure that you acquire adequate knowledge and development the appropriate technical skills to meet program expectations, your performance is monitored carefully during the Critical Care Medicine Fellowship. You are evaluated quarterly by supervising faculty members and meet with the program director to review these evaluations. This is accomplished through an electronic process called MedHub, available through any Mayo Clinic workstation or via remote access.

MedHub is linked to the six core competencies identified by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME):

• Patient care
• Medical knowledge
• Interpersonal and communication skills
• Professionalism
• Practice-based learning and improvement
• Systems-based practice

Completed faculty evaluations are reviewed by the program director, chair of clinical competency committee, and core faculty members. Upon approval of the evaluation by the members, the evaluation immediately becomes available electronically to fellows in the MedHub system.

You will also have an opportunity to complete an evaluation of faculty following each quarter, as well as an evaluation of the program on an annual basis.