A longitudinal regional educational model for pulmonary and critical care fellows emphasizing small group- and simulation-based learning

Recent trends have necessitated a renewed focus on how we deliver formal didactic and simulation experiences to pulmonary and critical care medicine (PCCM) fellows. To address the changing demands of training PCCM fellows, as well as the variability in the clinical training, fund of knowledge, and procedural competence of incoming fellows, we designed a PCCM curriculum that is delivered regionally in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area in the summer and winter. The educational curriculum began in 2008 as a collaboration between the Critical Care Medicine Department at the National Institutes of Health and the Pulmonary and Critical Care Section of the Department of Medicine at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and now includes 13 individual training programs in PCCM, critical care medicine, and pulmonary diseases in Baltimore and Washington, DC. Informal and formal feedback from the fellows who participated led to substantial changes to the course curriculum, allowing for continuous improvement. The educational consortium has helped build a local community of educators to share ideas, support each other's career development, and collaborate on other endeavors. In this article, we describe how we developed and deliver this curriculum and report on lessons learned.