Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Nov 9;2(4):556-565.
doi: 10.34197/ats-scholar.2021-0067OC. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on U.S. Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Training

Atul Matta  1 , Rosemary Adamson  2   3 , Margaret M Hayes  4 , Hugo Carmona  2 , Morgan I Soffler  4 , Sadia Benzaquen  1 , Ena Gupta  1
Affiliations

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on U.S. Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Training

Atul Matta et al. ATS Sch. .

Abstract

Background: Although it is well known that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a profound effect on health care, its impact on fellowship training in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) has not been well described.

Objective: We conducted an anonymous survey of PCCM program directors (PDs) to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on PCCM fellowship training across the United States.

Methods: We developed a 30-question web-based survey that was distributed to U.S. PCCM PDs through the Association of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Program Directors.

Results: The survey was sent to 242 PDs, of whom 28.5% responded. Most of the responses (76.8%) came from university-based programs. Almost universally, PDs reported a decrease in the number of pulmonary function tests (100%), outpatient visits (94.1%), and elective bronchoscopies (96%). Three-quarters (77.6%) of the PDs reported that their PCCM fellows spent more time in the intensive care unit than originally scheduled.

Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a variable impact on different aspects of fellowship training. PDs reported a significant decrease in the core components of pulmonary training, whereas certain aspects of critical care training increased. It is likely that targeted mitigation strategies will be needed to ensure no gaps in PCCM training while optimizing well-being.

Keywords: COVID-19; PCCM fellowship; training.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
(A) Location of the participating programs. (B) Size of the participating programs. PCCM=Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on various aspects of PCCM training. CVC = central venous catheter; ECMO = extracorporeal membrane oxygenation; ICU = intensive care unit; PCCM = Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Overall impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on fellowship training.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • doi: 10.34197/ats-scholar.2021-0122ED

References

    1. Johns Hopkins University. 2021. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html - PubMed
    1. Richardson S, Hirsch JS, Narasimhan M, Crawford JM, McGinn T, Davidson KW, et al. the Northwell COVID-19 Research Consortium Presenting characteristics, comorbidities, and outcomes among 5700 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the New York City area. JAMA . 2020;323:2052–2059. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Grasselli G, Pesenti A, Cecconi M. Critical care utilization for the COVID-19 outbreak in Lombardy, Italy: early experience and forecast during an emergency response. JAMA . 2020;323:1545–1546. - PubMed
    1. Wu Z, McGoogan JM. Characteristics of and important lessons from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in China: summary of a report of 72 314 cases from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. JAMA . 2020;323:1239–1242. - PubMed
    1. Jacobo J, Mitropoulos A. Hospital ICUs running out of space due to COVID-19 surges across the country. ABC News; 2020https://abcnews.go.com/Health/hospital-icus-running-space-due-covid-19-s...

LinkOut - more resources