I am interested in hearing from a current or past CC fellow at Pitt. What do you like, what could be better? How much do you supervise residents or midlevels, how much of hands-on work do you do (both procedures, but also notes etc). Feel free to PM. Thanks!
Pittsburgh
- Thread starter EMIM2011
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Hey. You can search around; there's a current Pitt CCM fellow & a former fellow @ Pitt on this board.
I did anesthesiology residency there, and am doing CCM fellowship in Michigan. In all honesty, I likely would have stayed at Pitt for fellowship if not for compelling personal reasons to head a bit west, since it would have been an easy transition. I did my four ICU months as required by residency, and then two elective months as a senior resident. I'm VERY happy where I am, and loved my time in the 'burgh. Since I only saw the fellows (albeit for 6 months) and didn't actually do the training, take this with a grain of salt:
Probably the single biggest name in ICU still; I interviewed away from Pitt, and literally EVERY program director asked "Why would you leave Pitt to do training elsewhere?" Stand-alone CCM department whose Chair is ICU section editor of JAMA, tons of money, huge research efforts, and Drs. Angus, Kellum, Kochaneck, Kahn, Pinsky and others will get you published. Clinically, you get exposed to EVERYTHING - the flagship (UPMC Presbyterian) has a 22 bed CTICU (the usual, along with ECMO, VADs, and IABP), SICU, SICU-overflow, 23 bed Trauma ICU, Neurotrauma ICU and two floors of Neurovascular ICU, along with a 28 bed Transplant ICU. AND on call, you cover the whole hospital for codes and rapid-response calls. Plain and simple, you'll see it at Pitt. And your attendings will come from surgery, medicine, anesthesiology, and emergency medicine. EVERY day (not weekends) you get a fantastic lecture, from experts. My impression is that you get outstanding exposure - whether or not you want it. There are too many beds for you to have residents working beneath you. You get all the procedures, 'cause they won't get done on their own. You can't help but learn everything. But in comparison to where I am now, Pitt seems to treat fellows as super-senior residents, whereas I feel I'm treated like a junior attending now. As a resident in the ICU at Pitt, I can remember maybe 3 or 4 instances in which I was rounding with a fellow as my "leader", and there are several ICUs in which you simply do not run rounds without the attending there. Sum total: great exposure, lots of clinical work, not a ton of autonomy.
I did anesthesiology residency there, and am doing CCM fellowship in Michigan. In all honesty, I likely would have stayed at Pitt for fellowship if not for compelling personal reasons to head a bit west, since it would have been an easy transition. I did my four ICU months as required by residency, and then two elective months as a senior resident. I'm VERY happy where I am, and loved my time in the 'burgh. Since I only saw the fellows (albeit for 6 months) and didn't actually do the training, take this with a grain of salt:
Probably the single biggest name in ICU still; I interviewed away from Pitt, and literally EVERY program director asked "Why would you leave Pitt to do training elsewhere?" Stand-alone CCM department whose Chair is ICU section editor of JAMA, tons of money, huge research efforts, and Drs. Angus, Kellum, Kochaneck, Kahn, Pinsky and others will get you published. Clinically, you get exposed to EVERYTHING - the flagship (UPMC Presbyterian) has a 22 bed CTICU (the usual, along with ECMO, VADs, and IABP), SICU, SICU-overflow, 23 bed Trauma ICU, Neurotrauma ICU and two floors of Neurovascular ICU, along with a 28 bed Transplant ICU. AND on call, you cover the whole hospital for codes and rapid-response calls. Plain and simple, you'll see it at Pitt. And your attendings will come from surgery, medicine, anesthesiology, and emergency medicine. EVERY day (not weekends) you get a fantastic lecture, from experts. My impression is that you get outstanding exposure - whether or not you want it. There are too many beds for you to have residents working beneath you. You get all the procedures, 'cause they won't get done on their own. You can't help but learn everything. But in comparison to where I am now, Pitt seems to treat fellows as super-senior residents, whereas I feel I'm treated like a junior attending now. As a resident in the ICU at Pitt, I can remember maybe 3 or 4 instances in which I was rounding with a fellow as my "leader", and there are several ICUs in which you simply do not run rounds without the attending there. Sum total: great exposure, lots of clinical work, not a ton of autonomy.
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huge help. thanks!
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To be clear there are two Ccm departments at Pitt. Pulm Ccm and the good world famous multidisciplinary Ccm department. The following refers to the good one. Recent grad here. Lots of grunt work. Most units do not have mid level providers/residents/students. So you write a lot of notes. This has risk/benefits as I see it. Risk: call nights and busy units do have a lot of paperwork, but it means you can't hide or overlook your weaknesses/misunderstandings. It's a large group and we tend to work well together depending on your class. I can't lie: replacing the potassium and writing 10-20 notes per day at week 52 of fellowship isn't particularly helpful to my education. Great lectures/didactically. Lots of ecmo. Lots of procedures. Very good training.
D
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Tiger - in retrospect, would you choose Pitt again, or would you go to another place that allows you more autonomy, time for self-directed learning and research and less scut work? Do you feel that you benefited from the research resources that Pitt has?
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I would do it again. There is no place with the breadth of experience offered here. Autonomy is earned with time and prior successes. It's not all follow the leader. Many staff will let you lead but you have to show up ready and take that lead. There are plenty of staff willing to sit back and let you run the team and only chime in when needed. There will be rotations where you and another fellow split up the unit and work through your plan together and report back after plans are in place. It may not always feel that way. But just wait till the next week and your luck may improve... Research is there. I didn't have the interest or time as a one year fellow(anesthesia). It could be done. But honestly the second year fellows have more time for that sort of thing since they don't have much clinical time as second years. If you're not from any place meaningful research cannot be done in a year. Anyone can pump out a chapter or case series or chart review. If you're motivated they are always pushing their t-32 track to work on getting federally funded projects going but you have to give them another year or two. That program is well organized and successful. It's also preferentially offered to in house fellows before outside people are considered. Pinsky the great can advance any academic career.
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Pittsburgh is good. It's Midwest. So you have to like that. But it's a real city with food, theater, great parks, lots to do and 45 minutes and you're in the forest mountains/hills. As far as hours. Most days are 6-5. 6 days a week. 3-5 calls per month (26 hours). But if you have a good cofellow you can get out earlier sometimes. It's not as easy as residency. But if you are doing it to be well trained you will want to see all that you can before you're the boss. With 4 months of elective time and a couple weeks of vacation you get enough of down time. I found myself sticking around post call to meet up with mentors to get additional ultrasound experience and work on some publications. It is what you make it. If you're just trying to get by it's probably not the place for you.