The Department of Medicine

Pulmonary Disease/Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program

The Pulmonary Disease/Critical Care fellowship program will be conducting in person interviews during the 2024 interview season. We are excited to meet you in person and show you around our campus and state of the art facilities, in which we take great pride.

Fellowship Applicants: Learn About Our Program

This three-year, ACGME approved program is supported by excellent faculty with diverse expertise, whose goal is the provision of exceptional patient care in an atmosphere that encourages scholarship, research and inquiry, culminating in the development of competent and compassionate pulmonologist/intensivists.

The fellow has a broad variety of inpatient and outpatient experience. In addition to their continuity clinic, they have subspecialty clinics in pulmonary hypertension (PHTN), interstitial lung disease, cystic fibrosis (CF), interventional pulmonary (IP), lung cancer and sleep medicine. There is also CF/PHTN/lung transplantation and burn unit experience at Vanderbilt University. Trainees experience world-class teaching in IP with extensive exposure to a variety of interventional procedures. They develop clinical expertise as leaders of a multidisciplinary team in the ICU, with extensive exposure both clinically and procedurally to critically ill patients with multi system organ failure. 

Graduating fellows over the past four years have had 100% board pass rate, have chosen both academic and private practice careers, and have pursued additional subspecialty training as well.

Get to Know Us

Our Campus

Center of Excellence

The Heart Lung Vascular Institute is one of the medical center's six Centers of Excellence. Each center is dedicated to providing comprehensive care to patients and expert commitment plays a critical role in the hospital's ongoing success. The Heart Lung Vascular Institute brings together expertise in clinical care, teaching and research. Patients receive exceptional healthcare combined with patient-centered care, premier technology and extensive patient/community education in one convenient outpatient facility.

Program Strengths

Despite the limitations imposed on pulmonary procedures by the pandemic, the volume of interventional procedures and inpatient consultations performed by our group at UTMC in 2021 remained substantial, including:

INPATIENT CONSULTATIONS AND ADMISSIONS

• 1,157 Pulmonary Consultations/Admissions

• 11,644 Medical ICU Admissions

BRONCHOSCOPY

• 1,493 Bronchoscopies (there is close to 95% fellow participation in these procedures based on monthly rotation availability)

• 518 EBUS (endobronchial ultrasound)

• 244 robotic bronchoscopies
  

• 299 Therapeutic/Interventional Bronchoscopies
  

• 283 Other Advanced Diagnostic (EBUS and Transbronchial Biopsies)
  
  
• 377 ROSE (rapid on-site evaluation)

PULMONARY FUNCTION LAB

• 6,479 PFTs (pulmonary function tests)

• 127 CPET (cardiopulmonary exercise test)

PLEURAL PROCEDURES

• >200 Thoracentesis

• 70 Chest Tubes

RIGHT HEART CATHETERIZATIONS

• 40 Right Heart Catheterizations (performed in the Cath Lab; number does not include pulmonary artery catheters placed at bedside)

• 27 Vasodilator Challenge Studies

ICU-RELATED

• 133 Endotracheal Intubations

• 222 Central Venous Lines (does not include overnight procedures)

The fellowship program is an integral part of the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine Department of Medicine program that has been in existence since 1956, with continued full accreditation since its inception.

UTGSM provides fellows with an excellent support system, including nursing, pharmacy, library, laboratory, nutritional support, social workers, consultative support from subspecialists, and an excellent Resident Assistance Program. The University of Tennessee Medical Center has state-of-the-art diagnostic and therapeutic facilities.

UTGSM is minutes away from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, main campus and has the resources of this large institution at its disposal. UTGSM has a close working relationship with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, located in Memphis. Teachers and researchers at UTGSM collaborate and share facilities with colleagues at the prestigious University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories..

UTGSM draws patients from a large geographic area in East Tennessee, southeast Kentucky, northwest North Carolina, and western Virginia. University of Tennessee Medical Center is a Level 1 Trauma Center. Due to the tertiary referral nature of the university program, a large number of patients with a broad spectrum of clinical pathologies are available for both clinical experience and research studies.

The fellowship faculty practice, University Pulmonary and Critical Care is located in offices connected to the hospital and is part of the University of Tennessee Medical Center's Heart Lung Vascular Institute (HLVI). The University of Tennessee Heart Hospital, which opened in 2010, is a $26 million four-story building to provide expanded inpatient hospital services for the University of Tennessee Medical Center's HLVI.

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