Lung Transplant Medicine Fellowship

About the Program

The Lung Transplant Program at Baylor St Luke’s Medical Center (BSLMC) is located in Houston’s renowned Texas Medical Center, and is one of the leading programs in the nation. We strive to meet patient needs through innovative research, cutting-edge technology, and providing high-quality and compassionate healthcare. The BSLMC lung transplant program was established in 2008, and through steady growth has become an established referral center for patients with advanced irreversible lung disease. We have performed the greatest number of transplants in Texas in the past 1- and 3-year periods with exemplary patient outcomes, which underscores our commitment to quality patient care.

Highlights:

Largest lung transplant program in Texas and top 10 program in the USA
Exemplary 1-year and 3-year patient outcomes
Skilled and diverse faculty members
Short waitlist times
Extra Corporeal Membranous Oxygenation (ECMO) bridge to transplant program
Multi-organ transplants (heart-lung, liver-lung, kidney-lung)
Redo lung transplants
Donation after cardiac death (DCD) program
Organ preservation program including ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) organ procurement. 1st program in Texas to perform EVLP lung transplant in 2018
Advanced lung disease programs (interstitial lung disease, pulmonary vascular disease, cystic fibrosis, advanced airway disease)
Interventional pulmonary program

Curriculum

Rotations

Inpatient lung transplant service: Round on broad mix of post-transplant (immediate post op, step down ICU, transplant floor) and pre-transplant patients
Outpatient lung transplant clinics: Comprehensive assessment of both pre- and post- lung transplant patients in outpatient setting
Procedures: Bronchoscopy (transplant airway management and transbronchial biopsies), thoracentesis, and tube thoracostomy
ECMO Service, Organ Procurement, and donor call: Manage lung transplant patients that are on ECMO. Observe at least 3 organ procurement surgeries as well as 3 transplantation surgeries. Donor call- review donor offers and donor lung management
Electives: Advanced lung disease clinic, Interventional Pulmonology, Transplant Immunology, Transplant Pathology, Transplant Radiology, Transplant Infectious Disease
Research: Opportunities to pursue bench, translational, and clinical research. Lung biorepository, clinical databases, clinical trials, and ILD database. BCM has multiple resources available to hone research skills including collaboration with Rice University

Didactic training

Learning will occur through instruction during various rotations, as well as formal didactics through the following:

Transplant core curriculum series
Lung histopathology review
Weekly MRB’s
Monthly M&M
Monthly lung transplant journal club

Research training

Fellows are encouraged to pursue scholarly activities. One month will be dedicated to research, but fellows are expected to work on their project(s) throughout the yearlong fellowship. Fellows can partner with mentors to pursue a wide variety of clinical research and quality improvement topics.

Fellows will be required to complete all research-related institutional training courses
Submit research abstracts to national and international lung transplant meetings
Attend at least one national/international organ transplant meeting/year
Publish at least one manuscript

Evaluation

Ensuring proper training/learning throughout the 1-year fellowship is critical. Fellows will be evaluated by the faculty at the end of each rotation, and will get feedback quarterly from the program director. Fellows are also encouraged to provide feedback to the faculty so they can adapt their teaching to trainees’ learning needs.

Admissions

Qualifications

M.D., D.O., or equivalent degree
Completion of an ACGME accredited Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship
Board certified or board eligible for PCCM
Eligible for medical licensure in the state of Texas