ACE: Surgery Critical Care

School of Medicine

The Surgical Critical Care Advanced Clinical Elective provides students with a multidisciplinary approach to care of the critically ill surgical patient. The units are very active critical care facilities with state-of-the-art monitoring and support technology. The course content emphasizes a physiologic approach to the care of critically ill general, vascular, transplant, geriatric, oncology, and emergency surgical patients. Students will gain experience with invasive hemodynamic monitoring, mechanical ventilation, enteral/parenteral nutrition, surgical infectious disease, and management of vasoactive medications. Topics such as cost containment, resource utilization, and medical ethics are an integral part of daily intensive care management. The patient care service consists of a surgical or anesthesia attending physician, a surgical critical care fellow, mid-level surgical/anesthesia residents, and surgical interns. Other staff available in the unit includes clinical pharmacists, respiratory therapists, and nurse practitioners. Teaching rounds are made each morning with didactic lectures and case-discussions Monday-Thursday. Friday morning attendance of surgical grand rounds and resident teaching conference is mandatory. A course syllabus containing management protocols and educational objectives is provided to all registrants. Evaluation of the student's performance is based on clinical knowledge, basic science application, integration into the team, and progression in learning throughout rotation. Mid-rotation and final evaluations of each student will be conducted by the critical care attendings, critical care fellow assigned to the unit, and the course director. This course fulfills the acute care requirement.