GME NeuroCritical Care

Mercy Neurocritical Care Fellowship Program

Mercy Hospital St. Louis is a private, not-for-profit teaching hospital located in St. Louis, Missouri. It has served the community since 1871, coupling medical research and innovative treatments with patient-oriented health care. Mercy is a 1,100 bed hospital that treats 55,000 inpatients annually and is the only Level 1 Trauma Center in St. Louis County. We provide medical direction to eight fire/ambulance districts and the Emergency Department treats 95,000 patients annually. Our ICUs total 70 beds equipped with state-of-the-art monitors and devices and 38 intermediate care beds. Mercy also has the largest electronic ICU (virtual ICU) in the country, monitoring more than 600 ICU beds in multiple states.

In affiliation with St. Louis University School of Medicine, Mercy Hospital St. Louis began a conjoint, Internal Medicine-based, Critical Care Medicine (CCM) subspecialty residency program in 1979, that remains one of the top CCM fellowship programs in the country. In 2020, we got approved and started a Neurocritical Care fellowship program through the United Council of Neurologic Subspecialties (UCNS).

The two-year Neurocritical Care subspecialty residency consists of 20 months of structured core curriculum and four months of elective time, which includes research. A one-year clinical program is also available. The Neurocritical Care program educates residents in all aspects of Neurocritical care, including clinical management, ICU administration, research, and ethical and economic problems that confront practicing intensivists. Formal lectures are provided five times per week.

During ICU rotations, house officers from the Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, Transitional, and Obstetrics and Gynecology residencies work closely with the Neurocritical Care and CCM subspecialty residents and attending physicians. The core curriculum of the residency includes rotations through the Multidisciplinary NeuroICU, Med/Surg ICU, Trauma ICU, CVICU, nutrition support team, respiratory care, night float, pharmacology, and anesthesiology. Elective time and clinical research are also available rotations.

Our faculty includes a group of 15 intensivists/neurointensivists (certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the United Council of Neurologic Subspecialties). Our patients are monitored by intensivists, neurointensivists, and nurses with web cameras monitored through our electronic (virtual) ICU. Our neuroscience team also includes six neurosurgeons, two neurointerventionalists, and 10 neurologists. Mercy is also a certified Comprehensive Stroke Center. Neuroscience-trained nurses staff the Neuro ICU. Daily multidisciplinary rounds (including the attending neurointensivist, Neurocritical care subspecialty resident, internal medicine or transitional resident, clinical pharmacist, therapists, dietician, and nurses) in the Neuro ICU provide clinicians an opportunity for academic discussion and direct communication between the members of the healthcare team.

The neurointensivists perform EEG monitoring, ICP monitor placement, intubation, line placement, chest tube placement, percutaneous tracheostomies, invasive and non-invasive hemodynamic monitoring, and bedside echocardiography and ultrasound. These procedures are also taught to our subspecialty residents. Our department also offers a difficult airway multi-day course, a focused echocardiogram multi-day course , Emergency Neurologic Life Support (ENLS) course, and Mechanical Ventilation course to the subspecialty residents.

Mercy Hospital St. Louis has a very active research institute that endeavors to develop and participate in high quality research. Our CCM/Neurocritical Care Department is involved in several investigator-initiated and multi-center research studies. Our group has published multiple manuscripts in the fields of critical care and neurocritical care in peer reviewed journals, in addition to numerous abstracts and poster presentations by our subspecialty residents at prominent national meetings, such as the NCS and Society of Critical Care Medicine.

Program Requirements

The NeuroCritical Care Fellowship Program does not participate in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). Applications are accepted yearly starting in the spring. Application materials should be scanned and emailed to the Fellowship Coordinator and interviews are conducted in late summer and early fall.

Application requirements: