The Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) is an ACGME-accredited three-year combined pulmonary/critical care medicine fellowship. The program has held continued accreditation since it began on July 1, 2019.  

The combined PCCM program has a total of six trainees (two per year) for three years. The experience combines the curriculum of two long-standing and independent ACGME-accredited MSK programs: the previous two-year pulmonary training program, along with the one-year critical care medicine training program. Critical care rotations are integrated into each year of the program. Trainees learn from MSK’s full-time pulmonary medicine attendings and intensivists at MSK, as well as other full-time pulmonologists and intensivists during the program’s outside rotations.

The fellowship offers unique and extensive exposure to immunocompromised patients. Our trainees become experts in malignant pulmonary disease and pulmonary disease related to malignancy. The outpatient pulmonary clinics are open to all patients with pulmonary disease, not just those who are being treated for malignant or malignancy-related pulmonary disease, providing a broad training experience for fellows. In addition, MSK often manages patients’ non-oncology issues while they are receiving treatment at our institution, and many patients will subsequently stay with our non-oncology faculty (comprising more than 100 internal medicine non-oncology subspecialists), after their therapy is completed.

As part of the PCCM fellowship, trainees spend time in the sleep medicine clinic and laboratory at Lenox Hill Hospital. During inpatient pulmonary consultation, fellows work with pulmonary service physician assistants and nurse practitioners and are supervised by a dedicated pulmonary attending. Electives are arranged based on the interests of the trainee.

The critical care component of the program is 10 months in duration. Trainees spend five months in MSK’s state-of-the-art 20-bed adult medical-surgical intensive care unit (ICU) and will have four required outside rotations at three institutions for experience in:

• Cardiothoracic surgery (1 month)
• Neurocritical care (1 month)
• Trauma surgical ICU (1 month), and
• Community-based medical ICU rotation 

Fellows also spend one month in MSK’s Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine to optimize airway management skills. Additional ICU time may be arranged based on the interests of the trainee.

Beyond critical care medicine, there is extensive ICU and pulmonary procedural training and experience, including but not limited to:

• Central venous and arterial catheter and chest tube insertions
• Ventilator management and waveform interpretation
• Therapeutic and diagnostic bronchoscopy with endobronchial ultrasound and transbronchial needle aspiration

 Our fellows gain extensive experience in the management of pleural diseases, including thoracic ultrasound, chest tubes, and tunneled pleural catheters. In addition to teaching fellows how to perform traditional diagnostic flexible fiberoptic bronchoscopy and pleural procedures, our interventional pulmonologists offer trainees exposure to advanced diagnostic and therapeutic techniques.

The educational experience includes pulmonary and critical care curriculums, which are integrated throughout the year, including but not limited to:

• Core conferences
• Hands-on experiences starting with simulations (i.e., critical care ultrasound, ventilator management, pulmonary and critical care medicine procedure teaching, journal club, M&M, and multidisciplinary case conferences).

In addition, the Pulmonary Service participates in multi-institutional conferences, including Pulmonary Grand Rounds and clinical case conferences within New York City, which add to the breadth of pulmonary and critical care medicine topics.

All trainees are expected to participate in a research project and to present at regional and national meetings. There are projects available in pulmonary medicine and in critical care medicine.

The program is recruiting two trainees for the combined Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Fellowship.

Application deadline

September 1

Length of Program

3 years

Eligibility

Board-eligible or board-certified graduates of an accredited United States residency program in internal medicine.

Number of positions 

2

How to apply

Applications must be submitted through ERAS by September 1 and require a personal statement and three letters of recommendation, including one from your Internal Medicine Program Director. The Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Fellowship participates in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP).

Interviews take place mid-September through early November for the following July.