MaineHealth Maine Medical Center (MHMMC) pulmonary & critical care (PCC) fellows participate in a a wide range of didactics, lectures and conferences throughout the academic year.
A dynamic schedule of pulmonary & critical care didactics, lectures and conferences
Weekly didactics
The PCC fellowship has a dedicated academic half day model for weekly didactics (currently Tuesday afternoons) with a diverse mix of presentations by fellows, PCC faculty, and guest speakers from other departments. PCC fellows are protected during our weekly fellowship didactics. Weekly didactics are a mix of clinical case presentations, core topic reviews, journal clubs and research presentations. PCC fellows also attend our monthly Pulmonary Grand Rounds and Critical Care Grand Round series.
Fellow boot camp and summer lecture series
All incoming first-year fellows complete a dedicated boot camp during their first month. Fellow boot camp is a structured onboarding experience combining morning didactics with afternoon simulation sessions. Boot camp covers:
- Core procedural skills (airways, central venous access, echocardiography)
- Introductory lectures on advanced critical care topics including shock, ARDS and brain herniation
It is run jointly with medical and surgical critical care fellows, providing an early opportunity to build cross-disciplinary relationships from the very start of training.
During July and August, protected Tuesday afternoon didactic time is used for the summer lecture series — a focused curriculum designed to orient and ground incoming fellows in the core content of pulmonary and critical care medicine. For second- and third-year fellows, the series offers a valuable opportunity to revisit foundational topics with greater clinical experience, consolidate knowledge ahead of board preparation, and engage with content through a more senior lens.
Multidisciplinary conferences
Dedicated weekly and monthly multidisciplinary conferences include cytologgy-pathology rounds, pulmonary-radiology rounds, ILD clinical case conference, pulmonary nodule review conference and thoracic oncology conference. A wide variety of grand rounds, research symposia and other conferences are also scheduled throughout MHMMC and the MaineHealth Institute for Research during the year.
Annual regional conferences include:
- Kjeldgaard Symposium
- Paul M. Cox, M.D. Memorial Mud Season Conference
- Northern New England Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Fellows' Conference
- Northern New England Cystic Fibrosis Consortium
Conference examples
Review of cytology/pathologic specimens from clinical services as well as a predetermined pulmonary pathology curriculum. Teaching faculty from the Department of Pathology lead the instructional program.
Chest radiology is a monthly conference with PCC and radiology devoted to review of interesting films/cases, provide interpretation and basic differential and discuss diagnostic maneuvers/outcomes.
Clinical cases are presented in clinical-pathological review at each weekly conference, selected from the inpatient pulmonary consultation, outpatient or critical care services. Teaching is case-based with a thorough review of the pertinent medical literature to address a specific diagnostic or therapeutic issue. Subjects include pulmonary pathology, physiology, disease syndromes, disease diagnosis and management, equipment or techniques. Fellows prepare a brief (3-10 references) annotated bibliography for each conference.
Attending physicians and fellows present challenging diagnostic and therapeutic cases for discussion and medical literature review.
A structured curriculum of pulmonary and critical care medicine topics presented on a three-year cycle. Topics are based on ACGME requirements. Fellows, PCC attendings, and outside speakers present these lectures. The emphasis of this series is on basic science (cell and molecular biology or physiology).
Journal review is devoted to developing skills in critically assessing the medical literature. Articles from the current literature are selected each month that illustrates emerging trends in disease management or a particular issue pertaining to study design, statistics or epidemiology.
This weekly multidisciplinary conference includes the specialties of pulmonary medicine, thoracic surgery, medical oncology, radiation oncology, radiology and pathology. Sponsored by the Department of Oncology Information Services, the format is the presentation of cases and prospective discussion of patient management. Clinical follow-up of prior cases are included. Data from the MaineHealth Maine Medical Center lung cancer database is reviewed.