Critical Care Fellowship Program

• ERAS Program ID: 1421114006
• NRMP Number: 2085142F0
• Fellowship Length: 2 years
• Trainees Accepted: 4 per year

• All applications must be submitted through ERAS.
• Passing scores in Steps 1, 2, and 3 of USMLE or COMLEX-USA 1, 2, and 3. USMLE/COMLEX Transcripts are required. Please request your official transcripts from NBME and upload them with your ERAS application.
• Medical school transcript
• Medical School Performance Evaluation (MSPE), formerly the Dean’s letter.
• Curriculum Vitae
• Personal Statement
• Three letters of recommendation, including one from your Residency Program Director.
• ECFMG certification is required for all Foreign Medical Graduates.
• E-mail address (we will respond to all questions via e-mail)
• Currently enrolled in, or completed an ACGME, AOA, ACGME-I Advanced Specialty, RCPSC, CFPC accredited Internal Medicine or Emergency Medicine Residency program. Those having completed their residency must be either ABMS board eligible or board certified.
• Our institution sponsors J1 Visas.
• Applications will NOT be considered if any of the above requirements are missing and/or incomplete.

Please Note:

• Observership or externship opportunities are not offered at this time.
• Memorial Healthcare System (MHS) does not allow for away rotations. We require 100% of your training to occur at MHS, with almost no exception.

The Critical Care program will provide fellows with exposure to a diverse and representative patient population through training across multiple intensive care units within the health system. Fellows will rotate through medical, surgical (including complex vascular and renal transplant), cardiac, neurocritical care, and trauma ICUs that care for patients with a wide spectrum of acute and complex critical illnesses.

The Critical Care program serves a large and diverse community with varied socioeconomic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds, ensuring fellows gain experience caring for patients across a broad demographic spectrum. This diversity exposes fellows to differences in disease presentation, health disparities, and complex social determinants of health that influence critical illness and recovery.

Fellows will work with multidisciplinary teams that include intensivists, surgeons, cardiologists, neurologists, anesthesiologists, nurses skilled in critical care instrumentation, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, laboratory medicine professionals, and other allied health professionals. This collaborative care model ensures fellows participate in the comprehensive management of critically ill patients with complex medical and surgical conditions.

The combination of varied ICU settings, diverse patient demographics, and a high-acuity referral base ensures that fellows experience the broad spectrum of diseases and clinical conditions managed by critical care subspecialists while also reflecting the needs of the community served by the health care system.

The Critical Care Fellowship will offer a structured core curriculum conference series designed to provide comprehensive coverage of the fundamental principles of critical care medicine.

The curriculum will follow a recurring schedule throughout the academic year and will include dedicated weekly didactic sessions led by critical care faculty and invited subspecialists.

Core curriculum topics will include mechanical ventilation, shock and hemodynamics, sepsis and infectious diseases in the ICU, renal replacement therapy, neurologic critical care, cardiovascular critical care, sedation and analgesia, nutrition, ethical and end-of-life care, and quality and patient safety.

Educational sessions will incorporate case-based discussions, evidence-based reviews of current literature, and interactive teaching to encourage critical thinking and the application of knowledge to clinical care.

Additional educational conferences will include morbidity and mortality conferences, case conferences, simulation-based learning sessions, and critical care journal club.

Fellows who are unable to attend a conference will have the opportunity to review the educational content. Slides, materials, and articles presented during didactic conferences will be shared with fellows through email and MedHub. Summaries from morbidity and mortality conferences, journal club, and other case conferences will also be made available.

Sample Rotation Schedule

Sample PGY-4 Year

• Medical Intensive Care Unit / Surgical Intensive Care Unit: 16 weeks
• Medical Intensive Care Unit / Surgical Intensive Care Unit Night Float: 8 weeks
• QI / Scholarship: 3–4 weeks
• Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit: 4 weeks
• Neurocritical Care Intensive Care Unit: 4 weeks
• Electives: 12 weeks
• Vacation: 5 weeks

Sample PGY-5 Year

• Medical Intensive Care Unit / Surgical Intensive Care Unit: 16 weeks
• Medical Intensive Care Unit / Surgical Intensive Care Unit Night Float: 8 weeks
• QI / Scholarship: 3–4 weeks
• Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit: 4 weeks
• Neurocritical Care Intensive Care Unit: 4 weeks
• Trauma: 4 weeks
• Electives: 8 weeks
• Vacation: 5 weeks

Available Electives

• Advanced Heart Failure
• Anesthesiology
• Infectious Disease
• Interventional Radiology
• Nephrology
• Neurosurgery
• Palliative Care Medicine
• Pulmonary
• Thoracic Surgery
• Echocardiography
• ICU Pharmacy
• Radiology
• Research / Scholarly Activity
• Ultrasound Technologist

Certain elective rotations are conducted at Memorial Hospital West.

• Daniel Mayer, MD (Program Director)
• Lance Cohen, MD (Core Faculty - Critical Care)
• Martinus Dyrud, DO (Core Faculty - Cardiac Critical Care)
• Shelly Miller, MD (Core Faculty - Pulmonary and Critical Care)
• Aniruddha Sahu, MD (Core Faculty - Critical Care)
• Alvaro Visbal, MD (Core Faculty - Critical Care)
• Amad Walajahi, MD (Core Faculty - Critical Care)
• Charles Bonanno, MD (Teaching Faculty - Nephrology)
• Benjamin Byriel, MD (Teaching Faculty - Gastroenterology)
• Paula Eckardt, MD (Teaching Faculty - Infectious Disease)
• Benjamin Houseman, MD, PhD (Teaching Faculty - Anesthesiology)
• Robert Hunter, MD (Teaching Faculty - Obstetrics and Gynecology)
• Syeda Hussain, MD, MPH (Teaching Faculty - Internal Medicine)
• Atif Hussein, MD (Teaching Faculty - Hem/Onc)
• Leonid Melnitsky, DO (Teaching Faculty - Emergency Medicine)
• Jonathan Roberts, MD (Teaching Faculty - Cardiac Services)
• Andrew Rosenthal, MD (Teaching Faculty - Surgery)
• Buse Sengul, MD (Teaching Faculty - Neurology)