Surgical Critical Care Fellowship
Work alongside a diverse team while developing your skills as a compassionate critical care surgeon.
About us
As a Surgical Critical Care fellow at Geisinger, you’ll be equipped with the evidence-based practices and skills needed to manage complex surgical and trauma patients. Completion of this one-year ACGME-accredited program will prepare you for successful certification by the American Board of Surgery.
During the fellowship, you’ll gain experience at Geisinger Medical Center, a Level One trauma center and a tertiary referral center for the surrounding areas. Our independent surgical and trauma intensive care units are closed units with a variety of comprehensive disease pathologies.
In addition to a robust clinical experience, the fellowship features a broad educational curriculum including didactics and simulations. Along the way, you’ll be supported by our faculty members to become a compassionate, lifelong learner with professional relationships that will last throughout your career.
The Geisinger difference
Our values — integrity, leadership, teamwork and service — are at the heart of everything we do. We provide high-quality, patient-centered, cost-effective care to our patients across northeastern Pennsylvania. And our fellows learn to do the same.
The Surgical Critical Care Fellowship accepts one fellow per academic year. If selected, you’ll:
- Gain experience through a rigorous didactic curriculum designed around evidence-based practices.
- Learn to prioritize compassion, empathy and integrity.
- Be immersed in an educationally diverse environment that encourages interaction and collegiality between subspecialists involved in the care of complex surgical patients.
- Gain a better understanding of the administrative and logistical issues that are vital to the success of a high-quality intensive care unit.
> Meet the Faculty and Fellows
A note from our program director
At Geisinger Medical Center, we are proud of the care provided in our surgical and trauma intensive care units. We have a group of 12 board-certified critical care surgeons who participate in caring for our ICU patients. The Surgical Critical Care Fellowship was born out of a desire to contribute to the future of our subspecialty. We take an active role in educating our fellows and provide all the necessary tools to help them become confident critical care surgeons.
The ideal fellow has a passion for taking care of the complete patient. Attention to detail and a commitment to patient-centered care are critical to success.
Thank you for your interest in our Surgical Critical Care Fellowship. We look forward to meeting you.
Jeffrey Wertz, DO
Program overview
The Surgical Critical Care Fellowship offers a dynamic, thorough experience for surgeons who wish to become skilled critical care clinicians. The education and clinical experience, derived from a strong curriculum of the mature critical care medicine and general surgery departments, is focused on multidisciplinary patient care.
Our fellowship provides the unique opportunity to learn from a diverse faculty. In addition to spending time with the critical care surgeons, the schedule includes time spent with intensivists who have neuro critical care, internal medicine and anesthesia backgrounds.
The academic rotation schedule is comprised of 13 four-week blocks and is structured as follows:
- Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) — 4 blocks
- Trauma Intensive Care Unit (TICU) — 4.5 blocks
- Anesthesia — 0.5 block
- CVICU (Cardiac/Thoracic/Vascular/Transplant) — 1 block
- NSICU (Neuro Critical Care Unit) — 1 block
- Trauma Intensive Care Unit (TICU) Nights/Echo — 1 block
- Emergency General Surgery (EGS) — 1 block
About Geisinger
Geisinger serves more than 1 million people in central and northeastern Pennsylvania. We’ve been nationally recognized for innovative practices in quality, delivery models such as ProvenCare® and the use of an award-winning electronic medical record, Epic®. Our physician-led system has about 24,000 employees, including nearly 1,700 physicians, 10 hospital campuses, two research centers and a health plan with more than half a million members, all of which boost our hometown economies by $7.1 billion annually.
Location
The main hospital campus, Geisinger Medical Center, is in Danville, a charming, historic riverside town with lots of opportunities for outdoor recreation including kayaking, cross country skiing and cycling. We are also close to major urban centers. New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., are all within reasonable drives. We offer the best of both worlds — affordable, relaxing small-town life and access to the excitement and cultural experiences in big cities.
