In the Medical Intensive Care Unit and the Coronary Care Unit, Medicine-Pediatrics residents learn to manage patients with multi-system failure and a variety of life-threatening illnesses. The critical care units offer a challenging patient mix and exceptional learning opportunities. Each unit team includes at least four PGY-1 residents, two senior residents, a subspecialty fellow and the teaching attending.

The Minerva and Fred Braemer Heart Center sponsors patient care programs and clinical research in the full scope of interventional cardiology. Equipped with sophisticated technology, the Minerva and Fred Braemer Heart Center integrates digital imaging and hemodynamic monitoring into a cardiac information management system.

In the Medical Intensive Care Unit, our designation as a Level 1 Trauma Regional Resource Center and participation in a helicopter program ensure a broad experience for medical residents. Active programs in pulmonary and hepatobiliary disease, infectious disease and transplantation also ensure outstanding learning opportunities for medical residents.

Daily teaching rounds and conferences supplement the clinical experience for medical residents in the critical care units. The core curriculum ensures that residents achieve competency in a variety of procedural skills, including ventilator management, ECG interpretation, arterial and central line placement and advanced cardiac life support. A nurse facilitator coordinates patient transfers in and out of the units, freeing residents to concentrate on learning and patient care.

Experience in pediatric intensive care is provided in the pediatric intensive care unit at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. Here Pediatric residents learn to manage critically ill children, with special emphasis on airway management, mechanical ventilation, cardiac output, increased intracranial pressure and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. A staff of pediatric intensivists closely supervises a six-member resident team. A formal didactic program of pediatric intensive care unit conferences and a written curriculum of critical care topics rounds out this experience. For those who desire it, additional intensive care experience can be arranged on an elective basis.