Education

The Division of Pulmonary Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine has a rich history of delivering exceptional clinical care, inspirational instruction, and clinical and translational research. Having recently commenced a significant resurrection with new leadership, the Division is fully committed to upholding and enhancing this heritage by integrating the missions of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center and recruiting outstanding clinician-teachers, clinical scholars, and physician-scientists. We have added faculty in emerging fields, such as interventional pulmonary medicine, sleep medicine, early lung cancer detection, and are continuing to expand.

One of the Division's clinical strengths is the broad spectrum of conditions and diseases we identify and treat. These include: asthma, cough, COPD, sleep disorders, environmental and interstitial lung diseases, lung nodule and tumor evaluation, infections, sleep-related disorders, rare diseases of the chest, and more. In an effort to optimize patient care, we collaborate in a multidisciplinary fashion, regularly interacting with other services, particularly internal medicine and subspecialties, thoracic surgery, medical and radiation oncology, and transplant medicine. Our Interventional Pulmonary Medicine Program is state-of-art, and includes the most advanced technologies available in New York City and its environs. Sleep Medicine laboratory is also expanding at Montefiore's Moses Division and our Pulmonary Function laboratory is poised for expansion at the Moses and Weiler Divisions.

Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine fellows work in an academically stimulating environment and train with outstanding clinicians and state-of-the-art equipment with an emphasis on the fundamentals of pulmonary physiology. They have exceptional clinical exposure, given the size of the campus and depth of expertise, and learn to recognize uncommon syndromes and approach treatment plans with the knowledge of current literature and skill to apply it to the unique elements of each patient. We are extremely proud of the sensitivity they express to their patients and colleagues, knowing they will become the next generation of distinguished practitioners.

Our teaching program is robust, with four new fellows entering each year. Our three-year combined Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship program encompasses a diverse range of patient diagnoses, research opportunities, and rotation environments - including Montefiore Medical Center's Moses Division; Weiler Division; Jacobi Medical Center, a large municipal hospital. Publications on clinical series routinely emerge from these encounters, and we also offer the opportunity to pursue additional formal training in clinical research through the AECOM masters level degrees in Clinical Research.

The Division's research endeavors have historically been physiologically and clinically oriented. Long-term members of our faculty have published seminal papers in hypoxia, cough, environmental lung disease, sickle cell chest disease, and sleep medicine, with much of the work ongoing. Currently some new investigative efforts are focused on lung cancer detection biomarkers, as the Spivack laboratory now located in Einstein's spectacular new Price Center for Genomic & Translational Medicine is generating novel noninvasive exfoliated and exhaled molecular approaches to measuring gene dysregulation that can be used for tracking early lung disease processes (i.e. carcinogenesis and inflammation) in ambulatory patients; other new studies include ethnicity and race disparities in lung cancer provision; sleep-related cardiovascular morbidity and mortality; and nascient research endeavors in airway interventional approaches, and other areas.

Research is incorporated into the entire training period of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship, though the majority is concentrated during the third year. Fellows enroll in the clinical epidemiology/research methodology course offered by Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at the start of the third year and choose their research mentor, who will guide them through the investigative process.

Fellows may work on any of these projects, as well as in a variety of epidemiology, clinical trial, translational research, and basic science endeavors at Montefiore Medical Center or at the medical school (Einstein).

The program's size and diversity provide the opportunity for considerable flexibility so that individuals with strong research interests may arrange to spend time in laboratory or clinical research, whereas others have the opportunity to do more intensive clinical work.

Fellows are required to complete one original work that may range from laboratory to clinical research. It is expected that this project will culminate into a written manuscript and regional and/or national presentation of the findings. Additionally, interesting patient case study presentations are regularly written and submitted to the major medical journals.

Our goal is to develop outstanding Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine investigators through a strong foundation in the basic science and clinical research. For those seeking additional training, one or more additional years of research are potentially available to fellows with suitable backgrounds and interests.

 

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