Neurosurgery & Brain Repair

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Fellowship Programs

Neurocritical Care Fellowship

Program Overview

The Neurocritical Care Fellowship at the USF Health offers a 12 or 24-month immersive program, accredited by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and overseen by the American Board of Medical Specialties. The program is designed to focus on comprehensive care for critically ill neurological patients. The main goal is to give trainees the skills to manage both neurological and medical aspects of care in the ICU.

Training will be divided between neurological and medical conditions including rotations in non-neurological ICUs. This specialty uniquely addresses the connection between the brain and other organ systems. Neurointensivists streamline care, often bridging multiple subspecialties such as cardiology and neurology. Proficiency includes knowledge of standard ICU monitoring, specialized neurological techniques, and interventions such as hypertensive hypervolemic therapy and therapeutic hypothermia.

Mission

The mission of the Neurocritical Care Fellowship at USF Health is to prepare the physician for the independent practice of Neurocritical Care. To this end, the overarching goal of this fellowship is to provide the trainee with comprehensive, organized, immersive, and well-supervised training in Neurocritical Care in an environment that encourages and supports research and innovation such that he or she might confidently and competently practice independently as an academic neurointensivist providing specialized treatment and patient care

Fellowship AIMS

  • Provide sufficient clinical experience in all core competencies of Neurocritical Care, including both neurological and medical aspects of critical care. 
  • Support the clinical experience with applied research suitable for promoting an academic career. 
  • Provide an opportunity to publish and establish expertise in neurocritical care. 
  • Gain experience in teaching students and residents in diagnostic and operative techniques in the ICU.
  • Gain experience as a member of an integrated clinical team.

Training Site

The Fellowship is based at Tampa General Hospital (TGH)  a busy Level 1 trauma center and is the only one in the region. The NeuroICU is a single 32-bed unit with a >90% bed occupancy rate and admissions exceeding 1000 per year. There are over 2000 trauma cases per year, and many severe injuries, including severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). As a result, there is ample exposure to sTBI, including many patients who receive lifesaving neurologic surgery and monitoring. TGH is also a comprehensive stroke center with well over 1000 stroke cases per year, including many intraparenchymal and subarachnoid hemorrhage patients. TGH is a frequent referral hospital for other comprehensive stroke programs in the Tampa Bay area

Program Structure

  • The fellow will be involved in direct patient contact in the intensive care units, stepdown units, emergency department, and operating rooms and will be supervised by faculty from the Division of Neurocritical Care with increasing independence. Specific clinical duties include:

    • Rotating on either a bi-weekly or monthly schedule depending on the block schedule and electives during the course of the 12 or 24 month fellowship.
    • Groups of shifts that may include both day and night shift blocks.

  • The fellow will attend departmental grand rounds, multi-disciplinary case conferences, morbidity and mortality conferences, any hands-on workshops, and national/international specialty conferences.

    Attendance at weekly Neurosurgery Grand Rounds (Friday mornings) is mandatory. These rounds consist of weekly resident-led presentations on fundamental topics in neurosurgery, monthly chief-resident-led Quality Assurance/Morbidity and Mortality conferences, monthly combined Neurology-Neurosurgery Grand Rounds, and ad-hoc reviews of interesting/challenging clinical cases, didactic teaching led by departmental or extra-departmental faculty, lectures by visiting professors, and occasional presentations by fellows. The fellow will be required to prepare and deliver at least one12 presentations on topics of his or her choosing at the combined Neurology-Neurosurgery Grand Rounds. In addition, the fellow will be required to attend monthly Journal Club (Thursday evenings), for which he or she will be expected to propose articles related to Neurocritical Care.

    The fellow will be required to attend multi-disciplinary case conferences with neurosurgery and neurocritical care faculty, pathway and protocol conferences, neurology morning report, and cerebrovascular conference.

    Finally, the fellow will be required to submit an abstract and to attend at least one national or international meetings throughout the fellowship.

Program Leadership