Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, and Emergency General Surgery Fellowship for Advanced Practice Providers

MetroHealth, the area’s most experienced Level I trauma center, offers a postgraduate fellowship for Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) in trauma, surgical critical care, and emergency general surgery (EGS). As one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation, our team of experts will collaborate to provide an aggressive yearlong training to include the highest quality education to effectively train a newly licensed provider in trauma, critical care, and EGS.

Program Information

The fellowship is a 12-month post-graduate program designed to provide specialty training to a motivated APP interested in pursuing a career in trauma surgery, EGS, and/or surgical critical care. This role has dual responsibility as a student and clinical APP in the Division of Trauma, Critical Care, Burns, and EGS. The APP Fellow will fulfill educational responsibilities in cadence with growth of clinical skills and incrementally increased clinical responsibility.

The curriculum will include a didactic and clinical experience under the guidance of experienced nationally recognized physicians and APPs in the trauma, EGS, and surgical critical care fields. Fellows will learn to perform a thorough trauma assessment and implement high-quality, well-rounded critical care at an American College of Surgeons (ACS) verified Level I Adult Trauma Center and Level II Pediatric Trauma Center.

Education will be 20% EGS, 30% surgical critical care including burn ICU, 40% trauma, and 10% elective rotations. Elective options include surgical ICU, community trauma/critical care, life flight, neurocritical care, and others. The core curriculum will include recognition of traumatic injury, initial management of the traumatically injured patient, along with recognition of complications and identification of surgical emergencies.

The fellow will learn surgical management and recognition of options for non-surgical management of trauma, EGS, and critically ill patients. The fellow will have an opportunity to participate in weekly educational lectures, morbidity and mortality reviews, ongoing quality improvement and research projects, and monthly APP-specific education.

Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) certification will be provided. Clinical procedure training will include but is not limited to:

• Airway skills such as intubation and surgical airways
• Acute hemorrhage management, including tourniquet use and deep laceration repair
• Surgical treatment of musculoskeletal trauma, such as fasciotomy technique and management, and removal of foreign bodies
• Assessment and management of blunt and penetrating torso trauma, such as FAST exam and chest tube placement
• Intraoperative surgical skills, including sterile technique, patient positioning, retraction, and surgical knot tying for both Trauma and EGS
• Critical care skills, including central and arterial line placements, bronchoscopy, and ventilator management