Curriculum

Our fellowship consists of one module of orientation, 25 modules of clinical training, 10 modules of research activity and three modules of vacation. Most modules are 4 weeks long.

Our rotations, core curriculum, critical care training and research opportunities ensure that you receive a nationally competitive education in pulmonary medicine.

During your first year, before you embark on service rotations and on-call duty, we provide you with an in-depth orientation module to ensure you are prepared to undertake these responsibilities. During our monthlong orientation, you will review pulmonary physiology, become familiar with the basics of ultrasound diagnostics, spend time working with our bronchoscopy simulator and learn core concepts of pulmonary and critical care medicine.

We also provide you with opportunities to shadow second-year fellows on core rotations, which will help you learn the specific requirements of each rotation and the logistics of the different hospital systems and intensive care units.

Our clinical curriculum enables you to experience a broad spectrum of pulmonary conditions.  During your pulmonary medicine training, which takes place at several training sites, you will master a variety of important skills, including:

• evaluating inpatient and outpatient consults
• presenting cases to our attending physician during daily consultation rounds
• seeing new pulmonary patients in consultation at our ambulatory clinic
• interpreting all pulmonary function tests
• supervising medical residents and fourth-year medical students
• performing invasive procedures such as bronchoscopy and ultrasound guided thoracentesis

Our critical care training is held at Buffalo General Medical Center and the combined medical-surgical intensive care unit (ICU) at our Buffalo VA Medical Center training site. As a second-year fellow, you will rotate for one month as part of the trauma critical care team at Erie County Medical Center.

Discover how our critical care rotations help you build solid fundamentals of knowledge in critical care and trauma patient management:

Our fellowship provides you with numerous opportunities to increase your familiarity with a range of procedures. You will perform at least 100 bronchoscopies during your fellowship and we will help you master procedures including:

At our Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center site, you can increase your competence with endobronchial ultrasound guided transbronchial needle aspiration. There, you will be exposed to navigational bronchoscopy, stent placement and other advanced procedures. Endobronchial ultrasound is also available at our Buffalo VA Medical Center site. You may also have opportunities to participate in percutaneous tracheostomies.

As a fellow in our program, you will rotate through our core service rotations, which are hosted at our diverse training sites. The skills you learn in our core rotations will be augmented by our anesthesia and thoracic surgery service rotations.

During your first year, after completing our core curriculum/orientation, you will spend the rest of your time on clinical service:

During your second and third years, you will start your research training in addition to completing your core rotations. You will devote five modules to research and eight modules to clinical service in your second year of training:

Our outpatient clinics give you experience in outpatient evaluation, diagnosis and treatment while helping you learn to work as part of a multidisciplinary pulmonary care team.

You will spend one half day per week in an outpatient pulmonary continuity clinic for 36 months of your training. On average, you will be responsible for at least one new patient and at least four return patients per half-day session at the clinic.

With the guidance of our faculty, you will see your own group of patients for initial evaluations and follow-up visits. Our faculty will review your care plan, provide detailed feedback, offer suggestions and modify the assessment and plan if necessary.

Also, you will spend one additional half-day per week seeing new consultations while on your research modules. We give you as well the option of participating in a pulmonary hypertension and adult cystic fibrosis clinic.

Our program provides you with valuable opportunities to sharpen your teaching skills. You will instruct the residents and medical students who take pulmonary electives at our training sites, and you will have opportunities to teach other physicians, health personnel, patients and their caregivers.

During hospital rotations, you will coordinate the consult team, including medical students and residents. We will rely on you to distribute consultations among residents and students; you will review cases with them before attending rounds and take a lead role during daily teaching rounds. You will also find and disseminate clinical articles relevant to cases you encounter.

You will gain additional experience when you educate second-year medical students about physical diagnosis; you will spend one semester teaching a course on the clinical practice of medicine.

You will supervise and instruct medical residents, interns and medical students on our consultative service and in the ICU. You will learn to work with a multidisciplinary team as you interact with nursing and dietary staff, respiratory therapists and an ICU pharmacist. Later in your training, you will act as a team leader in the ICU.

As you gain teaching experience, our faculty will provide feedback on your communication skills and instruction techniques.

We know how important it is to feel sufficiently prepared for your board exams, so we ensure that your schedule is structured to give you plenty of study time.

In the first year of our fellowship, you’ll take your internal medicine board exam during the second module of your training. The first module of the year is comprised of lectures, training and shadowing. Therefore, you will not work evenings or weekends during the entire module preceding your exam, allowing you plenty of time to study.

During autumn of your third year of our fellowship, you’ll take your pulmonary board exam. We structure your schedule so that you cover a service in your first module and then are on research rotation for three modules leading to the boards. This means you won’t have any evening or weekend work for three modules prior to the exam, giving you ample time to study and letting you avoid taking vacation time to study.

As a fellow in our program, you will receive up to 20 days of paid vacation annually.