Vanderbilt Emergency Medicine

Objectives:

1. To gain skills in the evaluation and treatment of critical care and medical resuscitation. To recognize those patients requiring admission to the intensive care unit (Medical knowledge, practice-based learning).
2. To build leadership skills is medical resuscitation as the team leader for all codes within the medical center. (Practice-based learning, system-based practice).
3. To learn a rational approach to diagnosis and effective resource utilization (System-based practice).
4. To master ventilator management, resuscitative procedures, and the use of hemodynamic monitoring in the setting of critical illness (Medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, system-based practice).
5. To specifically manage and understand the pathophysiology of pneumonia, sepsis, renal failure, obstructive lung disease, myocardial ischemia/infarction, pulmonary embolism, CHF, liver failure, inflammatory bowel disease, GI bleeding, stroke, TIA, and DKA (Medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement).

Description of Clinical Experience

• Each third year resident spends one month as the senior resident in Vanderbilt's Medical Intensive Care Unit. Call is usually every third night. The resident manages a high volume of critically ill patients and is responsible for supervision and education of the other interns and medical students on the service.

Description of Didactic Experience

• Residents have daily morning didactic conferences with the critical care fellows and daily teaching rounds with attendings.

Evaluation Process

• Written feedback from critical care faculty with whom the resident works.

Feedback Mechanism

• Direct bedside feedback, written formatted rotation evaluation.

This rotation has been agreed to and approved by the Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine and the Director of House Staff Training. Residents are given copies of all rotation summaries at the beginning of their PGY-1 year. Residents should use rotation summaries, formatted written rotation evaluations, and their performance on the In-service Examination to assess the rotation’s effectiveness.