Surgical Critical Care

This one year program is the first ACGME-approved Surgical Critical Care Residency in Los Angeles. The Fellowship Program is designed to train leaders in academic surgical critical care and trauma through an intensive clinical and educational experience. Two surgical fellows are accepted annually. Fellows are immersed in the management of critically ill and injured general surgery, trauma, vascular, cardiothoracic, transplant, and neurosurgical patients. Upon completion of the fellowship, the graduate is eligible for the American Board of Surgery Certificate of Added Qualification in Surgical Critical Care.

Qualified applicants must meet the following prerequisites:

• Completion of at least three years of training in an ACGME-approved general surgery residency
• Established ability as a teacher of medical students

Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU), located in a newly constructed critical care tower.

Fellows are involved in the management of over 1800 patients per year admitted to the 24-bed The ICU is surgically directed, and daily SICU patient rounds are conducted with a member of the SICU faculty, all of whom are general surgeons board certified/eligible in Surgical Critical Care. Darren Malinoski, MD is the SICU and Fellowship Director.

The SICU Fellows are involved in the education of students and residents that are rotating in the SICU to provide daily management of critically ill patients. Rotating residents come from the Department of Surgery at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, an independent surgical residency program, and medical students are in their fourth-year of study at the University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine and other top medical schools. As Cedars-Sinai is ACS verified Level I Trauma Center, fellows manage patients from all of surgical disciplines including trauma.

Electives include a rotation through a 12-bed Cardiothoracic Surgical Intensive Care Unit (CSICU). Procedures performed by SICU fellows include: bronchoscopy, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, and percutaneous tracheostomy, and ultrasound directed central line placement.

The SICU Fellows participate in a robust educational program, including a weekly SICU journal club and providing didactic lectures to the SICU residents and students. Weekly SICU lectures are given by faculty members of the Departments of Surgery, Medicine, Anesthesia, and Obstetrics and Gynecology. Fellows also attend weekly Matrix (morbidity & mortality) conference, basic science conference, and chief rounds within the Department of Surgery. Fellows also actively participate in quarterly quality improvement committee meetings for the SICU and bioethics conferences. Clinical research activities are an important component of the Surgical Critical Care Fellowship. Previous fellows have presented at national scientific meetings and published in peer-reviewed journals original research conducted during their fellowship training.

Clinical Scholars webpage

For more information about the surgical critical care fellowship, please contact: