We invite applications every year for our ACGME-accredited clinical fellowship in Critical Care Medicine. The fellowship is a multidisciplinary training program on the leading edge of intensivist training, delivering exceptional experiences in education, clinical exposure, and leadership in the rapidly advancing field of critical care medicine. It is designed to take the fellows through increasing levels of experience and responsibility, and prepare them for board certification in Critical Care Medicine. The Fellowship Program Director is Vadim Gudzenko, MD, and the Associate Program Director is Benjamin Kratzert, MD, PhD.
Our graduates are highly competitive in today's challenging healthcare market. Recent fellows have accepted excellent positions at private and academic medical centers including the University of Southern California Keck Medical Center, Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center, the University of Utah Health Care, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Santa Rosa Medical Center, and Northwell Health in New York. Several of our recent graduates have chosen to remain with us at UCLA and our associated West Los Angeles VA Medical Center.
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We are committed to the highest quality of training so that our fellows can become expert clinicians, educators, and leaders. Training takes place at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center (RRUMC) is a major medical center consistently ranked among the top hospitals in the U.S. It serves as a tertiary/quaternary referral center for Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and other regions in the US and abroad. As a leading transplant center, RRUMC offers one of the largest multi-organ transplant programs on the west coast, providing services for heart, lung, liver, and kidney transplantations. In addition, UCLA is a Level I trauma center with a broad catchment area.
The West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) is a major regional referral center for the veteran population. Patients are referred to the West LA VAMC from VA hospitals all over California for advanced surgical care in cardiothoracic, neurologic, and vascular surgery.
We currently offer four fellowship positions per year, and accept applications from qualified applicants with training backgrounds in anesthesiology, surgery, and emergency medicine.
Our fellows rotate through several intensive care units during their training. Within the 12-month fellowship curriculum, fellows may choose six to eight weeks of non-ICU elective rotations from a broad range of ICU-associated subspecialty fields.
The CTICU rotation comprises the core of the fellowship. Our fellows oversee the medical management of cardiac surgical patients undergoing a vast variety of procedures including CABG, valve replacement, repair of adult congenital heart disease, mechanical circulatory support device implantation, and heart and lung transplantation. The CTICU is the only unit at UCLA to manage adult patients on veno-venous and veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenators (ECMO) during the bridge to recovery or bridge to transplantation process. The ICU team works closely with the cardiac surgical team, and directs the entire perioperative medical management of these highly complex patients. Fellows typically spend 12-16 weeks in the CTICU.
The SICU provides services to a diverse surgical patient population including trauma, general surgery, surgical oncology, vascular, thoracic, urologic, head-and-neck, orthopedic, and gynecologic patients. Fellows typical spend four to eight weeks on this rotation.
On the "night float" rotation, our fellows care for CTICU and SICU patients at RRUMC. Typically, fellows spend 10-12 weeks on this assignment.
At the West Los Angeles VA SICU, fellows care for a variety of surgical patients including patients recovering from cardiac, thoracic, vascular, neurosurgery, general surgery, and major head-and-neck operations. Fellows spend four to six weeks on rotation in the VA SICU.
The MICU at RRUMC is a 24-bed unit that takes care of complex patients with a variety of advanced disease processes, including pulmonary hypertension, end-stage lung disease, respiratory distress syndrome, and recovery after bone marrow transplantation. Fellows spend three to four weeks on the rotation under the supervision of MICU attending physicians.
This ICU at RRUMC takes care of high-acuity patients with end-stage liver disease (ESLD), both pre- and post-liver transplantation. The experience provides fellows with broad exposure to patients with ESLD, emphasizing continuity throughout the full transplantation episode of care. Fellows typically spend three to four weeks in this unit, working in close collaboration with our liver transplant surgery team.
The NSICU at RRUMC provides state-of-the-art intensive care for a distinct patient population with complex neurological pathology including stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, traumatic brain injury, traumatic spinal cord injury, neuromuscular diseases, status epilepticus, and other neurologic critical illnesses. The Neuro ICU team utilizes a wide range of diagnostic modalities including continuous EEG, transcranial Doppler, brain oximetry, Xenon/computed tomography cerebral blood flow, microdialysis, and neuroimaging techniques. Fellows have the opportunity to rotate in the NSICU for one to two weeks.
Interested fellows may elect rotations in the Pediatric ICU at RRUMC, and the Burn and Trauma ICUs at the Los Angeles County and University of Southern California (LAC + USC) Medical Center.
Fellows have the opportunity to choose electives in non-ICU rotations, which can be organized according to the individual fellow's interests with the approval of the Fellowship Program Director. These include, but are not limited to:
Due to the high volume and complexity of patients in our ICUs, fellows gain experience with a variety of invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, including:
To balance a busy clinical service, we have developed a comprehensive didactic program to provide our fellows with state-of-the-art, evidence-guided lectures and journal clubs. During the first two weeks of their clinical rotations, fellows receive an intensive introductory lecture series that serves to orient them to the fundamentals of intensive care as well as to the particulars of the day-to-day operation of our ICUs. Besides daily bedside teaching, our didactic program includes:
In addition, fellows are encouraged and given time to attend other didactic sessions that include Anesthesiology Grand Rounds, Surgery Grand Rounds, weekly cardiac anesthesiology lectures and TEE reviews, as well as quality improvement, research, risk management, and professionalism workshops.
Our faculty are involved in a variety of clinical and translational research initiatives, and fellows are supported and encouraged to participate in research and quality improvement projects in many areas of critical care and perioperative medicine. Some of our ongoing projects include:
Thank you for considering the UCLA Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine for your Critical Care Medicine Fellowship training.
We will be accepting applications for the 2022-2023 academic year beginning November 2020.
Application Submission Period: November through March
Interviews: January through April
Interviews are done by invitation only. Your file will not be reviewed until it is complete.
All applicants must possess a valid California medical license prior to starting the fellowship program.
Please submit the following to the SF Match application database at sfmatch.org.
Please submit the following to Lucine Torosian, Fellowship Programs Coordinator, via email:
Please be aware that all candidates who are selected for the program must clear a security background check.
Applicants should use the following document naming convention: Applicant’s Last Name, Applicant’s First Name - Document Title (ex: Bruin, Joe - CV).
All supporting documents should be submitted electronically to Lucine Torosian, Fellowship Programs Coordinator, at Ltorosian@mednet.ucla.edu.
| Year | Fellow | Residency | Latest Employment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | Krisztina Escallier, MD (combined cardiothoracic anes) | Washington University in St. Louis (Anes) | |
| Kasey Grewe, MD | Columbia University (Anes) | ||
| Melanie Kusonruksa, MD | UCLA (Anes) | ||
| James Madrian, MD | University of Iowa (Anes) | ||
| 2019 -20 | Allison Ferreira, MD | UCLA (EM) | UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA / Antelope Valley Hospital, Lancaster, CA |
| Vikram Fielding Singh, MD, JD (combined cardiothoracic anes) | UCSF (Anes) | Stanford University, Stanford, CA | |
| Samuel Hong, MD | UCLA (Anes) | UCI Medical Center, Irvine, CA | |
| Eugene Won, MD | UCI (Surg) | Cardiothoracic Surgery, RWJ Barnabas Health, Newark, NJ | |
| 2018 - 19 | Marisa Hernandez-Morgan, MD, MPP (combined cardiothoracic anes) | UCSF (Anes) | UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA |
| Joseph Seif, MD | UCLA (Anes) | Anesthesia Service Medical Group, San Diego, CA | |
| Matthew Scott Vandiver, MD, PhD | Johns Hopkins University (Anes) | UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA | |
| 2017-18 | Jeffrey Kim, MD (combined cardiothoracic anes) | UCSF (Anes) | Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center Los Angeles, CA |
| George Lim, MD | Mount Sinai NYC (EM) | UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA | |
| Michael Wolfe, MD | MGH (Anes) | UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA | |
| 2016-17 | John Michael Guthrie, MD | Mount Sinai NYC (EM) | Hoag Hospital, Newport Beach, CA |
| Sirisha Rao, MD, MS | Yale University (Anes) | UCLA Medical Center / GLA-VA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA | |
| Andrew Young, MD | UCLA (Anes) | UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA | |
| 2015-16 | William Alexander Edwards, MD (combined cardiothoracic anes) | UCSF (Anes) | Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center, Santa Clara, CA |
| Joseph Guenzer, MD | University of Chicago (Anes) | University of Utah Health Care, Salt Lake City, UT | |
| 2014-15 | John Anderson-Dam, MD (combined cardiothoracic anes) | MGH (Anes) | USC Keck Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA |
| Jon Karch, MD | UCLA (Anes) | Santa Rosa Memorial Medical Center, Santa Rosa, CA | |
| Christopher Ortiz, MD, PhD | UCLA (Anes) | UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA | |
| 2013-14 | Subarna Biswas, MD | UCLA (Surg) | LAC+USC Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA |
| Bryan Romito, MD | UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX (Anes) | UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX | |
| Daniel Rolston, MD, MS | St Luke’s - Roosevelt (EM) | Northwell Health, Manhasset, NY | |
| 2012-13 | Zarah Antongiorgi, MD | UCLA (Anes) | UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA |
| Jun Sasaki, MD | UCLA (Anes) | UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX |
