Core Rotations

Medical Intensive Care Unit

The Medical Intensive Care Unit is a 40-plus bed state-of-the-art ICU that serves as a quaternary referral center for all of Western and Central New York and extending into northern Pennsylvania. We have more than 3,000 admissions per year and offer the full panel of intensive support.

Fellows are the team leaders in the medical intensive care unit, managing a team of residents, interns, medical students, and advanced practice providers. We take care of the sickest of the sick, and fellows receive training on advanced airway management, placement of chest tubes, and point of care ultrasound.  

Over the course of fellowship, you will have graduated responsibility on subsequent MICU rotations with the expectation that you will lead rounds by your third year. On MICU nights, fellows are the most senior critical care physician on site and enjoy appropriate independence, serving as junior attending (with faculty backup from home). 

The MICU fellow can do it all—consults, intubations and other procedures, teaching, and learning. There is a reason that the MICU is the most highly rated rotation year after year amongst fellows and residents alike.

Pulmonary Consultative Service

The fellows are the linchpin of the Consult Service, serving as the “face” of our division by taking and performing pulmonary consultations under the supervision of expert pulmonary faculty. Fellows guide medical students and residents from a variety of disciplines in the art of consultative medicine. They also perform all procedures related to the consultation, including bronchoscopy, pleural effusion management (thoracentesis, pigtail catheter and Pleur-X catheter placement), and biopsy.

Over the course of the fellowship, fellows will assume graduated responsibility, such that by the third year they have the opportunity to act as (pre)-attending pulmonologist under the support and supervision of faculty. 

Highland ICU

The Highland Hospital ICU is a 14-bed mixed medical-surgical ICU with a community hospital feel but tertiary medical center resources. Fellows care for a broad variety of critically ill medical and surgical patients, working closely with our seasoned APPs, residents in Medicine-Pediatrics and Family Medicine, and with a strong group of URMC faculty consultants.  

FF Thompson ICU

FF Thompson Hospital is a true community hospital nestled in the lakeside town of Canandaigua, 30 miles from Rochester (no traffic!). Thompson houses a state-of-the-art 12-bed intensive care unit and a busy pulmonary clinic complete with Sleep Lab, PFT center, and bronchoscopic capabilities. It is staffed by URMC faculty and offers primary and specialty care to a predominately rural population. 

Fellows report that FF Thompson grows their autonomy and takes their leadership skills to the next level.  Since this ICU is not regularly staffed by residents or medical students, fellows benefit from more 1:1 teaching with their attendings.  Fellows who are interested in a career serving rural communities can request additional time rotating in the ICU, as well as in the pulmonology outpatient clinic and on the inpatient pulmonology consult service.

Surgical ICU

Under the supervision of a diverse group of critical care attendings from the departments of medicine, anesthesia, and surgery, you will be introduced to the world of surgical critical care.  In the SICU, you have the unique opportunity to care for patients with end-stage liver disease both before and after transplantation, as well as patients recovering from a range of major operations.  

Longitudinal Clinic

All fellows have longitudinal clinic over the course of the three year fellowship. You follow your own personal panel of patients under the supervision of pulmonary faculty. You will experience the breadth of pulmonary medicine, ranging from the fan-favorite chronic cough and smoking-related lung disease to the many unicorns of pulmonary medicine, including Pulmonary Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis, lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), and pulmonary alveolar proteinosis.

Additional ICU’s

PCCM fellows elect to rotate through non-medical ICUs of their choice during third year. These include Burn-Trauma ICU (level I Trauma Center); the Neuromedicine ICU; and the Cardiovascular ICU.

Class of 2021

Aleksandr Kalininskiy

Residency / Montefiore Medical Center
Hometown / Minsk, Belarus

What led you to PCCM?
Probably the number one reason is the ability to deal with a large spectrum of illness—from chronic disease seen once per year in clinic to acutely crashing MICU patients. I felt that I was not giving up any of my internal medicine training by going into PCCM, but was simply adding more skills and knowledge on top such as performing complicated procedures, reading my own CT scans and interpreting PFTs. It also seemed like a field with many areas of research and with relatively low barriers to switch between them.

Meet our Fellows

The program's greatest assets are its supportive faculty, significant research time with lots of research opportunities, and large bronchoscopy volume, including EBUS and navigational.  Attendings are readily available at night—I have called numerous times at 2AM for support with sick patients and every attending I’ve spoken with has always been kind and helpful even at that time.”