Four- or Eight-Week Sessions offered monthly August through June, inclusive

Prerequisite: Completion of third-year medical school clerkships

Rotation Coordinator:
Michael A. Solomon, MD

Rotation Description
The Critical Care Medicine Department's (CCMD) training program invites medical students in their fourth year to a four- or eight-week clinical rotation in the intensive care unit (ICU) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center (CC). The CC is the site of intramural clinical research for the NIH. People from all over the world participate in approximately 1,000 research protocols conducted by the various institutes and centers. The CCMD provides medical, cardiac, and surgical ICU services for critically ill adult and pediatric patients enrolled in intramural NIH research protocols. The ICU is staffed by senior physicians and medical fellows with expertise in critical care medicine, pulmonary diseases, cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases, and anesthesiology. The ICU (capacity: 18 beds) will evaluate any patient from any service within the CC at the request of the patient's primary physician. The ICU is equipped with state-of-the-art cardiovascular and respiratory support services well suited to the care of patients with multi-system organ failure.

The student is expected to be an integral part of the ICU team. Work rounds start at 6:30 a.m. and are followed by microbiology rounds. There are also daily afternoon sign-out (work) rounds. Students are expected to attend rounds (Monday-Friday), be present at lectures, participate in evaluating and treating patients transferred to the ICU under the supervision of the staff physician, and avail themselves of the outstanding electronic/library resources available at NIH to review existing literature pertinent to the clinical problems discussed on rounds. There is no required evening or weekend duty.

A Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday morning (11:30–12:30) lecture series reviews pertinent clinical and research topics in critical care medicine. This lecture series is supplemented by weekly faculty tutorials and hands-on simulation training. In addition, students will have the opportunity under the supervision of the staff physician, to become skilled in the placement of a variety of intravascular catheters. At the end of the rotation, students will be given the opportunity to evaluate the elective as well as receive constructive feedback on their performance.

Rotation Objectives

• Gain clinical experience in providing thoughtful and expedient, quality care for critically ill patients.
• Learn the procedural and intellectual skills required of a critical care physician.
• Effectively communicate medical information to patients and their families, ancillary medical staff, and fellow physicians.
• Gain information about Critical Care Medicine training opportunities at the NIH.

Selection of Applicants
The program can accommodate one student per month.

Attending Staff

• John Beigel, MD
• Daniel Chertow, MD
• Robert L. Danner, MD
• Jason Elinoff, MD
• Peter Eichacker, MD
• Henry Masur, MD
• Dorothea McAreavey, MD
• Charles Natanson, MD
• Naomi O'Grady, MD
• James Shelhamer, MD
• Michael A. Solomon, MD
• Anthony F. Suffredini, MD
• Parizad Torabi-Parizi, MD