Welcome to the Acute Care Surgery Fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center!
The goal of the Surgical Critical Care Fellowship Program is to provide an outstanding exposure to complex surgical critical care and to develop the administrative skills necessary to ensure our fellows are able to emerge into a leadership role. The second year of the fellowship is to further develop the depth and breadth of clinical and leadership experience in Trauma/Acute Care Surgery, to provide early faculty experience, and to facilitate advancement in career goals and opportunities.
Vanderbilt provides an intensive evidence-based clinical experience in surgical critical care, trauma, emergency general surgery, and burns. The Vanderbilt ACS-verified Level 1 Trauma Center admits over 5,000 adult trauma patients each year with case mix of blunt to penetrating trauma approximately 85% to 15% and a large referral base through a robust pre-hospital ground and flight system. The surgical critical care experience is augmented by journal clubs, multidisciplinary conferences, as well as didactics and labs focusing on airway management, advanced ventilator techniques, and other relevant topics. The Vanderbilt Surgical ICU has >1,500 admissions a year and includes patients with general surgical, transplantation, orthopedic, ENT and gynecologic diseases. The Emergency General Surgery (EGS) service provides both breadth of experience as well as exposure to rare and complex surgical pathology. The EGS service has roughly 2000 contacts per year with about 1000 admissions and at least 900 major operative cases. The burn service is a regional referral center and admits 650 burn patients per year, with approximately 1,000 operative cases. The Veterans Administration SICU has >500 admissions a year, with a patient population consisting of general surgical, cardiothoracic, vascular surgical, ENT, orthopedic, neurosurgical, and transplantation patients.
Fellows will become well-versed in the multidisciplinary care of critically ill patients, systems management, billing/coding, and administrative leadership. Fellows will advance their skills as educators by working with residents and students as well as serving as instructors of ATLS, ASSET, ATOM, RTTDC, BEST, DMEP, and other course offerings. We offer a two-year program with the first year being ACGME-Accredited Surgical Critical Care, and the second year is now a GME-appointed year completing the overall AAST-accredited Acute Care Surgery Fellowship. We do have an option for those looking to specialize in Burn Surgery along with the SCC and ACS training but would require additional training time. All fellows are required to commit to two years of training in our program.
Four fellows matriculate into the 2-year Acute Care Surgery fellowship program annually. Program leadership makes directed efforts to encourage development of specific areas of interest for each fellow and to expand their skill sets as clinicians, educators, researchers, and administrators. We are committed to the success of our fellows and are excited to show you more about our program!
Stephen P. Gondek, MD, MPH
Program Director, Fellowship Program
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Medical Director, Burn Unit
Division of Acute Care Surgery