Mission, Aims, Goals and Objectives

Surgical Critical Care Fellowship

Mission

To provide general surgeons intensive clinical and educational training to become leaders in academic or community surgical critical care, trauma and emergent general surgery. Through an integrated program, fellows will attain knowledge and expertise to:

  • Satisfy the six core competencies outlined by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, or ACGME
  • Obtain a certificate of added qualifications in surgical critical care
  • Manage the most complex trauma and emergency general surgery cases
  • Become administratively and academically successful in their careers

Program Aims

  • To be a nationally recognized and reputable surgical critical care fellowship that attracts strong fellows who will be successful in achieving board certification in surgical critical care.
  • To graduate surgical intensivists who are highly competent to practice in a variety of health care settings, from academic to community based institutions with the skills to provide comprehensive acute care surgery expertise.
  • To provide fellows with the experience necessary to participate, advise and lead patient safety and quality initiatives that will contribute to the care of the patients and their community as a whole.

Goals and Objectives

The overall goal of the surgical critical care fellowship is to provide comprehensive critical care training to physicians trained in general surgery. This is accomplished through an organized combination of clinical work, didactics and supervisory responsibilities. Upon completion of this program, each fellow will be eligible for certification of added qualifications in surgical critical care as issued by the American Board of Surgery.

Additional goals include:

  • Gaining additional knowledge, technical skills and personal attributes required to function as independent, competent providers of surgical critical care
  • Learning to administer the operations of a critical care unit
  • Becoming more knowledgeable educators of the multiple members of a critical care unit, including training future members
  • Gaining experience in critical care research

The objectives of this program involve:

  • Gaining empiric experience in the delivery of surgical critical care to severely injured and critically ill patients under the general management of the Level I trauma service, general surgical service, vascular surgical service, surgical oncology service, cardiovascular surgical service and neurosurgical service
    • This includes competence in the application of advanced technology, geared toward optimization of care for the physiologic derangements seen in critically ill patients
  • Being exposed to a structured program of didactic education following a specific curriculum oriented toward an in-depth review of the pathophysiology of all aspects of critical care disease processes
  • Being exposed to onsite instruction in the process of administration and management of critical care units and, particularly, as it relates to application of resources, maintenance of regulatory compliance and full implementation of programs of quality monitoring and cost containment
    • This includes interfacing with the hospital administration through participation on multidisciplinary committees
  • Participating actively in educating members of the critical care team through a combination of organized courses (ATLS, PALS etc.), formal lectures and daily patient encounters
  • Participating actively in the comprehensive investigation and basic science research programs at the UF College of Medicine's Jacksonville campus