Our three-year curriculum combines busy clinical services with purpose-designed rotation experiences to give you the experience you need to practice excellent pulmonary and critical care medicine. Our fellows enjoy a great balance of direct and indirect supervision, with increasing autonomy as their skills grow. Specific workshops and lectures increase your medical knowledge and procedural competence in a safe learning environment. There are excellent opportunities for research, including fourth-year opportunities for those wishing to pursue a physician-scientist career.
Track Examples
Year 1
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
Year 2
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
Year 3
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
Clinical = 24 Months
Research and Selective = 12 Months
Year 1
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
Year 2
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
Year 3
- Research and Selective
Year 4
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
- Clinical
- Research and Selective
During fellowship training, fellows will experience a mix of pulmonary, critical care, inpatient, outpatient, clinical, academic, and research activities. Below are sample schedules illustrating the general structure of our fellowship.
Most of our clinical training is offered at the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center campus, which operates 1,004 acute care, rehabilitation and psychiatric care beds. Within the main hospital are general medicine nursing units, 33 intermediate care and 85 medical-surgical intensive care beds. Learn more about Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. Fellows care for patients in three inpatient venues:
- Medical intensive care unit
- Surgical intensive care units (ICU)
- Pulmonary medicine inpatient consultation service
These are busy rotations, with the section averaging more than 800 inpatient consults and nearly 3,500 admissions to the medical intensive care unit (MICU) every year. During each rotation fellows are paired 1:1 with attending faculty for the rotation. During their first year, fellows are exposed to the entire spectrum of pulmonary and critical care diseases by spending time both in the ICU and on busy consultative services.
Inpatient Pulmonary Training
Our inpatient consultation service averages more than 800 inpatient consults annually. Fellows partner with our inpatient COPD pathway, including our respiratory care navigators and nurse practitioner to create a seamless transition from hospital to office care. In addition, our fellows provide expert consultation for patients on all hospital services, including (but not limited to) general medical, general surgical, obstetrics and gynecology, transplant, oncology, burn surgery, cardiovascular surgery, and otolaryngology.
Outpatient Pulmonary Training
Approximately 7,000 outpatients are seen in the pulmonary clinic annually. All fellows experience a longitudinal continuity care clinic where they care for patients with the full spectrum of pulmonary diseases as their primary pulmonary specialty physician. These clinics occur one day every week except when the fellow is rotating on an inpatient service. Additionally, all fellows rotate several times on our outpatient pulmonary medicine (OPPM) rotation. During this rotation, fellows do not have inpatient duties and they rotate through faculty general pulmonary clinics and subspecialty clinics in:
- Severe asthma
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis
- Lung nodule evaluation
Bronchoscopy and Pleural Procedure Training
Fellows are part of our pulmonary procedure team (PPT), a team of pulmonologists with expertise in advanced diagnostic bronchoscopy, pleural procedures, and interventional pulmonology. Our section performs roughly 1,000 bronchoscopies (fiberoptic and rigid) per year. Fellows will develop competence in all aspects of bronchoscopy, including:
- Diagnostic bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage
- Fluoroscopic-guided bronchoscopy
- Endobronchial and transbronchial lung biopsy
- Transbronchial needle aspiration (conventional and ultrasound guided—linear and radial EBUS)
- Robotic shape-sensing bronchoscopy
Fellows will also acquire competence in pleural procedures such as:
- Pleural ultrasonography
- Thoracentesis
- Thoracotomy tube insertion and removal (tunneled and non-tunneled techniques)
Pulmonary Function Testing and Interpretation
Pulmonary diagnostic testing experience includes time learning clinical pulmonary physiology by interpreting pulmonary function tests, cardiopulmonary exercise tests, inhalation challenge studies and sleep studies.
Our Medical Center has several intensive care units. Our fellows gain experience in medical, oncology-specific, and non-medical specialty ICUs. During MICU rotations, fellows are the primary proceduralist and will develop expertise in invasive hemodynamic monitoring procedures, endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation, and ultrasound-guided intravascular access. They will acquire both the technical proficiency necessary for these procedures and judgmental skills essential to their appropriate use. Fellows take a graduated active role in leading patient clinical management with a clinical team including interns, residents, pharmacists, nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists, nurse case managers and an attending physician. They also play an active role as a medical educator to house staff from internal medicine, family medicine, emergency medicine, and anesthesiology. Second- and third-year trainees rotate in our oncology specialty ICU where they gain experience leading a team that includes advance practice providers (NPs and PAs). All our ICUs utilize bedside ultrasound and support a point-of-care ultrasound curriculum facilitated by our critical care faculty.
As a quaternary referral center, our ICU patient population has high acuity, including a high percentage of patients receiving vasoactive medications and mechanical ventilation. Fellows gain access to real-time data about our ICU population, and report daily in our quality and safety huddle to assist with our ongoing safety and quality improvement efforts.
Each fellow’s non-medical ICU rotations occur in specialty intensive care units, such as:
- Trauma and Emergency General Surgery ICU
- Burn ICU
- Neurocritical ICU
- Cardiothoracic ICU
Fellows participate in several conferences and workshops to build their clinical and research skills. Fellow academic half-day occurs every other Tuesday, and additional conferences are held midday throughout the week. Workshops are scheduled throughout the year, usually on a Tuesday as well. Examples of workshops include Airway Management, ECMO, Mechanical Ventilation, Basic Bronchoscopy, Advanced Diagnostic Bronchoscopy, Pleural Disease Management, Introduction to Research, and Research Design Skills. A typical weekly schedule is shown below.
PCCM Conference Series
Every other Tuesday (Academic Half Day)
Noon: Critical Care Core Curriculum
l pm: Radiology Conference
2pm: Pulmonary Core Curriculum
3pm: Journal Club (Core)
Wednesday (Noon)
Journal Club (Breaking) (Week 1)
Faculty Meeting (Weeks 2 and 4)
Quarterly Multi specialty Case Conference (1pm-2pm)
Thursday (Noon)
Internal Medicine Grand Rounds
Friday (Noon)
Clinical Case Conference (Weeks 1 and 3)
Research Conference (Week 2)
M&M, Safety and Quality Conference (Week 4)
Research Training
The faculty and fellows in our section are engaged in several areas of research. During the first year of fellowship we hold an Introduction to Research rotation that provides new fellows with a view of available research activities and mentors. Each fellow identifies a primary project and mentor, and during the second and third fellowship years has ample protected time to pursue this project.
Each fellow class participates in research workshops plus their scheduled research rotations. For fellows interested in establishing a research career, support is offered to apply for a fourth year of training.
All senior fellows present a section conference where they summarize their work. Each year many of our fellows also present their work for national audiences at conferences such as ATS, CHEST, and SCCM. Fellow projects frequently result in peer-reviewed publications.