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GME Critical Care Medicine Conferences

The St. Louis University School of Medicine Critical Care educational program developed over the past thirty years and compliments the strong clinical training coupled with the milestone evaluations and entrustable professional activities.  The educational program supports the fellows with daily lectures, monthly journal clubs, weekly grand rounds, monthly ultrasound video conferences, quarterly chest conferences, and three yearly symposia covering extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), critical care ultrasound, the difficult airway and mechanical ventilation. 

ICU Daily Didactic Conferences

Essential core ICU topics presented

Weekdays: 1:00 p.m.

ICU Grand Rounds

Topic reviews and research presentations presented by critical care faculty, subspecialty faculty, critical care fellows and invited guest speakers.

Tuesday: 12:00 p.m.

Chest Conference

Case presentations and interactive discussion presented by the Mercy Hospital Pulmonary Attending Teaching Staff

Quarterly Symposia

Critical Care Ultrasound Course

Formal ultrasound course including didactic and practical sessions presented and directed by the critical care department including Dr. Jan Kasal and Dr. Chakradhar Venkata, both certified by the National Board of Echocardiography (Testamur).  Course includes echocardiography, DVT assessment, lung and chest ultrasound, and abdominal FAST examination.  Dr. Kasal co-chaired the Society of Critical Care Medicine Ultrasound Course.  The 3D Systems Ultrasound Mentor provides an excellent ultrasound simulation environment for the fellows to sharpen and test their skills. 

Difficult Airway Course

Formal airway course presented with a multidisciplinary approach including representation from critical care medicine, pulmonary medicine, emergency medicine, trauma surgery, pharmacy and anesthesia.  The course provides didactics, practical sessions, and an evaluation of the latest airway equipment.  The SimMan 3G used in this course provides lively interactive and educational simulation sessions. 

Mechanical Ventilation Course

The mechanical ventilation course is a combination of didactic lectures and a hands-on practical evaluation of mechanical ventilators with test lungs.  Case scenarios are presented and discussed at several learning stations.  The course focuses on applied pulmonary physiology in the setting of mechanical ventilation.

ECMO Education Course

The ECMO education course provides the fellows and staff with the foundation for the clinical practice of ECMO.  This course includes didactic lectures and practical sessions with a functional ECMO circuit presented by cardiovascular perfusionists, ECMO intensivists and ECMO specialists.      

Monthly Presentations

Journal Club

Fellow present journal articles following the evidence based medicine approach.  The critical care faculty responsible for journal club presentations completed the EBM workshop sponsored by Duke University Medical Center. 

Video Ultrasound Conference

This is a combined Mercy Hospital and St. Louis University video ultrasound conference that provides for a platform for the fellows to present and discuss ultrasound cases with the pulmonary and critical care attendings.  Focused ultrasound topics are presented and reviewed.   

Fellows/Director Meeting

This is a monthly meeting between the fellows and the program director to discuss any elements of the fellowship.

QI Conference

The Critical Care QI conference is administrated by the fellows to address quality and safety issues pertaining to the ICU.  The APACHE Outcomes database provides physiologic and outcome data on all ICU admissions and is presented during this meeting for review and to assess for trends of care. 

Critical Care Textbook Review

Each month the fellows are expected to read a section of a selected critical care textbook and then answer questions that the attendings have written for that reading.  The questions are presented and discussed during the conference.  The goal of the review is to complete a critical care textbook every two years in preparation for the critical care ABIM certifying examination.    

Research

Clinical research is conducted at St. Louis University Hospital and Mercy Hospital St. Louis.  The critical care fellows are encouraged and mentored to develop a clinical research proposal including the institutional review board submission and presentation of their research findings at local or national meetings.  Annually, the Critical Care Medicine Department sponsors the Robert W. Taylor, M.D Mercy Research Colloquium that provides a local venue for presentation of the fellows, residents and attendings research projects.  The Critical Care Medicine Department participates in industry and government sponsored research.    

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