Our fellows have dedicated educational time, where they are free from other patient care responsibilities. These include weekly 4-hour didactic lecture time, as well as morning report style conferences. Our morning conferences include:

  • Thoracic Tumor Board: in-person and virtual meeting with pulmonologists, thoracic surgeon, medical oncologists, and pathologists. We partner with other local pulmonary fellowships to share cases and educational opportunities.
  • Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) Conf8erence: Similar to Tumor Board, we offer multidisciplinary conference regarding interesting cases seen both here, and at neighboring HCA Pulmonary fellowships. We discuss the cases as a group.
  • VA Tumor Board: Virtual meeting while at the VA rotation with pulmonologists, thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, and pathologists.

Journal club meets once a quarter. Participants gather outside the hospital for a sponsored dinner at a local restaurant, socialize, and discuss a journal article selected for the event.

the program hosts quarterly meetings led by Dr. Kyprianou and HCA research coordinators. Fellows are expected to produce scholarly activity, and these meetings serve to make sure they are on schedule and have all the required resources to do so. For this purpose, our program has access to electronic library resources, statisticians and other aid via University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine.

As a busy hospital with a wide array of advanced therapy lines, we also have a litany of regular conferences that are open for our fellows to attend, as they are available. Regular participants in these conferences include the pulmonary/critical care attending physicians, specialist physicians, surgeons, hospital chief officers, nursing leadership, pharmacists, department heads, etc. Some of these conferences include:

  • Critical Care Committee
  • Code Blue Committee
  • Morbidity & Mortality
  • Cardiovascular Surgical Morbidity & Mortality
  • Pharmaceuticals & Therapeutics
  • High Risk STS (Society of Thoracic Surgeon) Case Review - Held prior to high-risk open-heart surgical cases to determine appropriateness of care, ways to mitigate risk and explore other less risky treatment options
  • Heart Transplant / Ventricular Assist Device Multidisciplinary Review Board - Held to determine eligibility for heart transplant for VAD implantation
  • ECMO Committee

We offer extensive hands-on procedural experience as well as an onsite simulation lab. Our fellows become proficient with:

  • Central & hemodialysis line placement, ultrasound-guided.
  • Landmark-guided emergent subclavian & femoral venous access
  • Bronchoscopy
    • Transbronchial biopsy, brushing with fluoroscopy guidance
    • Ion cone-beam external CT guidance
    • Robotic, navigational
    • Argon Plasma Coagulation - Cryobiopsy
    • Endobronchial-Ultrasound (EBUS) lymph node biopsy
    • Balloon dilation
    • Zephyr Endobronchial valves
  • Small-bore chest tube placement with ultrasound guidance
  • Large-bore chest tube placement by surgical approach
  • Endotracheal intubation, both video-assisted and direct laryngoscopy
  • Pulmonary Artery Catheter (Swan-Ganz) placement

Our rotation schedule adheres to ACGME-requirements and does not allow for work hour violations. Every fellow in our program is working one-on-one with an attending, who is capable of taking over the workload if the fellow needs to be absent due to fatigue or unforeseen personal obligations. During the three-year training program, our fellows rotate through rotations in:

  • Medical ICU
  • Cardiac ICU
  • VA - Inpatient Consults and Outpatient Care
  • Pulmonary Inpatient Consults
  • Procedures
  • Nights
  • Research
  • Echo
  • Sleep Medicine
  • Lung Transplant
  • Trauma
  • Outpatient Pulmonary
  • Anesthesia