SCC and ACS Fellowship – Message from Program Leadership
I am honored to serve as Program Director for the Surgical Critical Care and Acute Care Surgery fellowships at The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. When creating the original program information form in 2003, we could not have envisioned the growth and success that we have achieved. We began as a one-year Surgical Critical Care fellowship with a single position. In 2012, we became the 9th American Association for the Surgery of Trauma Acute Care Surgery program. We have since expanded to two positions per year, and now consider the program to be a comprehensive two-year fellowship.
We believe the fellowship has many strengths. The foundational strength of the program is undoubtably the teaching faculty. We have assembled a very diverse group of surgeon educators trained at the best fellowships in the country. They are excellent clinicians, decorated educators and dedicated researchers. A second clear strength is the training. ECU Health Medical Center, the 1,000-bed teaching affiliate of the Brody School of Medicine, is the sole tertiary care medical center in east of Raleigh, serving the entirety of eastern North Carolina and the Outer banks. The imparted volume and acuity of ECU Health Medical Center offers a perfect training environment. In that environment, we believe that we have remained at the forefront of state-of-the-art trauma and surgical critical care. We were an early adopter of thromoboelastography, have an active REBOA program, and now provide ECMO for all adult surgical patients at ECU Health Medical Center. Our program has many additional attributes detailed on this website, including international educational experiences, imbedded leadership training in all aspect of acute care surgery and surgical education, and a diverse selection of research opportunities and funding.
Simply stated, we feel strongly that graduates of our program are fully prepared for all clinical and leadership aspects of acute care surgery. There are many programs that have outstanding one-year SCC fellowships or strong ACS years. I would challenge anyone to find a program that offers the breadth and scope of training in both the SCC and ACS years, with the mentorship and camaraderie of one of the finest group of surgical educators in the country.
Candidates often ask what the program seeks in prospective fellows. The answer is very simple. We are looking for candidates who model the attributes of the teaching faculty; surgeons who demonstrate clinical and teaching excellence, are affable and of high character, consider our profession a true vocation, and who came to eastern North Carolina to serve our very important missions.