Critical Care Fellowship
Program Overview
The Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship Program at the Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware, in affiliation with Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), offers a multifaceted fellowship training program in pediatric critical care medicine.
Accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the program is based at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware’s only pediatric trauma center. Both the training program and our Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) itself are staffed by board-certified and fellowship-trained intensivists with varying backgrounds and extensive experience in both the clinical and research realms.
This fellowship program is an exciting opportunity for pediatric residents interested in a career in critical care. We expect that our graduates will go forward to have successful academic careers in tertiary care settings.
- Curriculum
- Research & Training
- Salary & Benefits
- Location & Living
- Faculty & Participants
Our Fellowship Program
The Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship Program at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware gives residents opportunities to develop their knowledge base and skills to provide the highest level of critical care to children in an academic environment that is rigorous, friendly and supportive.
You’ll receive an introduction to laboratory and clinical research and the principles of administration, as well as training to be an excellent educator.
The 3-year program provides both clinical and laboratory research, with strong mentorship from experienced researchers. Internal funding for research from Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware is also available. The critical care team provides medical coverage for pediatric trauma patients as Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware is Delaware’s only pediatric Level 1 trauma center.
Nemours has a dedicated and very active Pediatric Critical Care Transport Program, Nemours Kids Transport, which serves our large referral base. Our pediatric intensivists serve as medical command for all pediatric transports. Throughout transport, our advanced electronic health record (EHR) links our clinical team to the patient’s entire record.
Clinical Curriculum Highlights
The clinical component of the curriculum emphasizes the pathophysiology of acute, life-threatening disease and injury, and the general principles and physiology of advanced life support — including training in, and use of, advanced technologies. This part of the program places equal emphasis on clinical and academic skills.
You’ll be required to demonstrate excellence in all aspects of clinical care, including working in and leading teams, as well as teaching. Upon successful completion, you’ll be able to pursue subspecialty certification in pediatric critical care medicine.
Program Aims
Our main goal, as always, is to train clinically excellent fellows who are exposed to a wide variety of critical care pathology. Our secondary goal involves a broad exposure to the research process, including generation of a hypothesis, design of a comprehensive scholarly activity, robust data collection and analysis, formulation of a manuscript and intimate knowledge of the publication process. Finally, we strive by combining goals one and two above to produce fellows who are able to thrive in multiple critical care settings as an attending physician.
Research Opportunities
In addition to academic and clinical training, our fellowship program provides a structured, supervised research experience that includes 3 months of protected research time in the first year, 7 months in the second year and 8 months in the third year.
Curriculum
The first and second year includes a series of didactic lectures on experimental design and data collection and analysis sponsored by our academic partner Thomas Jefferson University.. You’ll have opportunities to learn laboratory techniques by observing and participating in current research projects. You’ll also attend a mandatory statistics course that includes lectures on experimental design also sponsored by Thomas Jefferson University.
To enhance your research experience, you’ll work with a mentor chosen from our critical care faculty. Thomas Shaffer, MSE, PhD, Director of the Center for Pediatric Lung Research, also shares his knowledge and experience with our trainees and sometimes serves as a mentor.
Your mentor will follow your progress and supervise the research process from hypothesis through experimental design, use of laboratory methods, data collection, analysis, presentation, and finally to abstract/poster presentation and manuscript preparation.
You’ll meet with your research mentor for at least 1 hour per week during research months and with the program director every 6 months. You’ll also report on your progress at monthly departmental research meetings. In addition, each fellow is assigned a Scholarship Oversite Committee (SOC). It consists of experienced researchers both from within and outside of the division who will meet with you every six months to review your research progress and help navigate you through difficulties that may arise.
Simulation
We run weekly mock codes for fellows and residents rotating through the PICU. All mock codes are fellow-driven where you will have the opportunity to create your own scenarios and make your own education points. More recently we have also included mock codes that run through a virtual reality system and shared over a teleconferencing platform, so that we have been able to continue this educational experience while being socially distanced.
There is always opportunity to practice procedural skills on mannequins owned by the department. This is especially helpful for first year fellows, and something that we do periodically throughout the year.
Additional opportunities to partake in simulation exist as well. There are interdisciplinary mock codes that fellows choose to become involved with and also have the opportunity to facilitate and serve as team leader for. There is a mannequin that allows for practice of CPR skills with real-time feedback and performance indicators.
Didactic and Research Links
World-Class Facilities
The Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware Life Science Center has current approval from the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC) and houses the research facilities for the Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware. The center has the necessary facilities to house both large and small animals.
Our department has a research laboratory within the Life Science Center, , formally the original Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware founded in 1940. The center is fully equipped with all necessary equipment, including invasive catheters, mechanical ventilators and respiratory monitoring equipment, intubation and tracheostomy equipment, and hemodynamic monitoring equipment. Many hospital and research departments have laboratory space within this building, and collaboration and borrowing of necessary equipment is easy and common.
In addition to this laboratory, the 2,500-square-foot laboratory of Dr. Thomas Shaffer will be available. Supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other funding sources, his lab is outfitted with Pulmonary Function Testing (PFT) equipment, hemodynamic flow transducers, critical care monitors, data recording instruments, computers, image analysis equipment, and cell and muscle bath setups. The lab also offers the capability of running in vivo studies with rats, rabbits, newborn lambs, weanling lambs and adult sheep. The animal research coordinator is Anne Heseck.
Finally, you will have access to research space at the duPont Experimental Station, formerly the home of duPont Chemical. Founded in 1903, it now serves as a collaborative research science and business development facility and is home to many fledgling companies and incubator/startups. Located less than 2 miles from the hospital, it is a short drive for fellows and serves as the home lab for Dr. Yosef Levenbrown, one of our critical care attending who investigates hemodynamic physiology in swine models.
Salary & Benefits
Salary
- PGY 1: $71,923
- PGY 2: $74,799
- PGY 3: $77,792
- PGY 4: $80,904
- PGY 5: $84,139
- PGY 6: $87,505
- PGY 7: $91,005
- PGY 8: $94,646
Benefits
- Medical
- Dental
- Malpractice insurance
- Office space
- On-call cell phone
- Prescription drug coverage
- Secretarial support
About Our Hospital in Delaware
The Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware is a multispecialty, tertiary care teaching institution located on a 300-acre estate in the scenic Brandywine Valley in Wilmington, Del.
Among the hospital’s amenities for all staff are:
- Free parking
- Park-like setting
- Gym/fitness center
- On-site child care center for children of staff
Living in Delaware Valley
Because of our location in the tri-state area of Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, we offer unique living/working opportunities. For example, you can choose to live in the downtown Philadelphia area and easily commute to our park-like hospital campus in Wilmington.
Train With Recognized Leaders
If you’re looking for a rewarding program built on academic excellence and family-centered care, Nemours Children's offers outstanding medical, surgical, pharmacy, nursing, therapy and psychology programs. Train with faculty who are respected leaders in their fields, a patient care model that stands apart and access to groundbreaking research.
Apply Today
Application Requirements
Deadline: October 1, 2024
Training begins: July 1, 2025
1. Submit application electronically using ERAS
2. Curriculum vitae
3. Personal statement
4. Medical school transcript
5. USMLE scores (all 3 levels)
6. Three references
Questions About Applying?
Nicholas B. Slamon, MD
Program Director
(302) 651-4029
nicholas.slamon@nemours.org
Jennifer DuBois
Administrative Coordinator
(302) 651-4029
jennifer.dubois@nemours.org