The Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso prepares surgical intensivists to provide excellent and timely surgical critical care; resuscitate and provide excellent trauma critical care; review data and disseminate research findings; teach residents and students; and lead a critical care unit.

Within one year of program matriculation, the surgical critical care fellow will gain substantive knowledge in surgical critical care to pass the surgical critical care certifying exam. The fellow will gain knowledge to practice in a surgical intensive care unit and care for trauma patients. The fellow will learn research skills, including how to formulate a research question, gather and analyze data, write and submit a clinical scientific abstract to a meeting, and prepare and disseminate a one-hour continuing medical education talk. After one year, the graduating fellow will be prepared for employment as a surgical critical care attending and prepared to publish a scientific manuscript in a medical or surgical journal.

The primary site will have at least eight months of surgical critical care as required by the ACGME and four months of elective rotations: Cardiac ICU, Neuro ICU, Trauma or PICU. There will be a simulation activity regarding end-of-life care for an unconscious individual on a ventilator. The fellow will take part in a trauma morbidity and mortality conference, held monthly. During this conference, every presentation is discussed as to root causes as well as classification with the Clavien-Dindo classification of adverse events. There is also didactic material regarding near-misses.