Education
The Neurocritical Care Division offers a variety of educational opportunities for the fellows during their training. The conferences available to the fellows include (but not limited to):
- Bedside Rounds (daily)
- Neurocritical care lecture series focusing on core critical care and neurocritical care topics, presented by our faculty and invited faculty (weekly).
- Neurology Grand Rounds (weekly)
- Neurosurgery Grand Rounds (weekly)
- Neurocritical care research meeting (weekly)
- Neurocritical care morbidity and mortality conference (monthly)
- Neurocritical care Journal Club (monthly)
- Neurotrauma conference (monthly)
- Neurocritical care quality meeting (monthly)
- Critical Care and Neurocritical Care board review (every 2 months)
- Boot Camp at the start of fellowship
- Simulation sessions
- Participation in BLS, ACLS, ATLS and ENLS (funded by the program for all fellows).
- All fellows will also take the annual MCCKAP exam to help prepare for the boards and track their progress over the course of their training.
Unique features of our program
- High volume of neurovascular and neurotrauma cases.
- Multidisciplinary teaching in neurocritical care unit.
- Dedicated neurocritical care pharmacists.
- High volume hands-on training for all critical care procedures.
- Multimodality monitoring.
- Direct mentorship and research opportunities.
- 4-week neuroanesthesia and airway management rotation with the department of anesthesia (upwards of 40 intubations in one month). Including, but not limited to, skills for bag-mask ventilation, endotracheal intubations (with direct laryngoscopy and video-guided laryngoscopy), laryngeal mask airway placement.
- EVD management across a wide spectrum of diseases; including intrathecal administration of tPA, nicardipine, abx.
- The program supports all senior fellows to attend the Neurocritical Care Society Annual Meeting, at which our fellows frequently present research projects completed during their training.
The fellows will have the opportunity to rotate through many electives, including (but not limited to)
- NeuroIR/Endovascular
- Neuroradiology
- Stroke Team
- Medical ICU
- Surgical-Trauma ICU
- Heart Failure ICU
- Interventional Pulmonology
- EEG
- Transcranial Doppler
- Mobile Stroke Unit
The fellows will be trained in performing all ICU procedures, including
- Endotracheal intubations
- Arterial line placement (with and without US guidance).
- Ultrasound-guided central line placement
- Ultrasound-guided dialysis line placement
- Bedside flexible bronchoscopies
- Invasive and non-invasive hemodynamic monitoring
- ICU Sonography
- Thoracentesis
- Paracentesis
- Thoracostomy and chest tube placement
- Bedside percutaneous tracheostomies
Our fellows also have ample opportunity to participate in meaningful clinical and translational research as a part of an established research program. The Neurocritical care research team has dedicated research staff to support and help develop research ideas. Fellows will have access to a large clinical and biospecimen databank that is perhaps the most robust in the country. Please see our research page (https://med.uth.edu/neurosurgery/neurotrauma-and-neuroscience-critical-care/critical-care-research/) for more details.