Critical Care Fellowship (Anesthesiology)

The Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine fellowship program at Baylor College of Medicine is based out of the Texas Heart Institute at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston, Texas (U.S. News & World Report ranking #20 for Cardiology & Heart Surgery). In addition to a robust experience in medical, surgical, and neurology/neurosurgery critical care, the program provides the most comprehensive perioperative training in cardiothoracic/aortic surgery, transplantation, and mechanical circulatory support. With more than 184 hospitals nationwide, BSLMC is currently the flagship hospital in cardiac surgery and cardiovascular medicine for the CommonSpirit health care enterprise.

Our fellows can develop the skillset of a contemporary critical care specialist given our small program size that offers a high-quality and individualized education, talented and diverse multidisciplinary critical care team (cardiac anesthesia/CCM, pulmonary medicine/CCM, cardiology/CCM, internal medicine/CCM, and cardiothoracic surgery/CCM), continuous advances in cardiovascular surgery since the 1970s, and cutting-edge research and technology.

The fellowship program has a unique structure with early exposure to critical care ultrasonography, including a dedicated transthoracic echocardiography rotation in the first trimester. Indeed, the fellows are eligible to become Diplomate in Critical Care Echocardiography by the fellowship. Furthermore, the fellows have lecture series in critical care fundamentals, specific curricula in thoracic transplantation and mechanical circulatory support, and a trainee-tailored mentorship program. We also offer dual fellowship with our nationally renowned adult cardiac anesthesiology fellowship program. More than 40 percent of our ACCM fellows intend to or have performed an adult cardiac fellowship program. Our inter-professional collaboration with allied healthcare providers is unparalleled.

As the current chief of the Cardiovascular MCS, and Transplant Critical Care at BSLMC, and director of this program, I worked very closely with the associate program director, Dr. Edward Yang, and all our critical care colleagues on essential changes to the curricula. By obtaining the most insightful input during the program evaluation by our previous trainees and facilitating new collaborations with national/international leaders in critical care medicine, our program has recently been fervidly boosted. The fellows can engage in robust networking and seek academic, community, and private practice careers.