ACGME Fellowship
Clinical Training – Nephrology/Critical Care
Background and Rationale
Critical Care Nephrology is a growing field with more and more residents expressing an interest in dual training and certification. Trainees who have completed an internal medicine residency may complete training and become board eligible in critical care in just one year when that training is paired with another ABIM subspecialty training program. Matching in this track will allow critical care and nephrology training to be achieved over 3 years in a coordinated program at a single institution.
The University of Chicago, with programs of distinction in nephrology and critical care, is ideally situated to establish and benefit from this training path. The nephrology program established an ICU clinical service and training rotation in 2008 and has established a platform for clinical and educational interaction across all 6 ICUs in the CCD. Critical care trainees from neurology, medicine, and anesthesiology rotate with the Nephrology ICU team. Further, these relationships have facilitated critical care nephrology and patient-oriented research collaborations across the BSD led by Dr. Jay Koyner. Our group has led/participated in critical care nephrology seminars and courses hosted by the American Society of Nephrology, the National Kidney Foundation and the Society of Critical Medicine and the American Thoracic Society. These educational efforts have resulted in Dr. Koyner and his colleagues publishing the first Handbook of Critical Care Nephrology (Wolters Kluwer, 2021).
The strengths outlined above in Nephrology paired with the strength of the Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care medicine make the University of Chicago an ideal training environment for an academically focused trainee interested in Critical Care Nephrology. Our program attracts top candidates interested in this field while further solidifying and expanding the interdisciplinary clinical, educational, and scholarly relationships between the sections.
1)Description of Dual Fellowship Training
This program offers dual training with other subspecialty training with three-years of training in nephrology and critical care given the opportunities outlined above. Trainees will begin with a traditional subspecialty training program, transition to interdisciplinary scholarship and then complete critical care training in the final year of training.
The outline of the 3-year sequence for Nephrology-Critical Care is as follows and includes 4 weeks of vacation in each year:
Year 1 – Nephrology includes 12 months of the current nephrology fellowships 4+2 block (4 weeks inpatient followed by 2 weeks of dedicated outpatient clinic). This year closely mirrors the schedule of our 1st year General Nephrology Fellows.
Year 2 – Nephrology and Transition continue the 4+2 blocks of Nephrology as in year 1 to ensure completion of the outpatient nephrology and nephrology requirements with an elective ensuring exposure to nephrology critical care (in the medical ICU, and elsewhere including procedures) and scholarship (research, quality improvement (QI) and medical education).
Year 3 – Critical Care includes 5 months medical critical care (MICU), 3 months non-medical critical care (CTICU, Neuro-ICU, Trauma/SICU, pulmonary consults), 3 months electives (with a focus on a nephrology critical care and the previously mentioned scholarly project – research/ QI/ medical education, but also includes airway management, bronchoscopy).