Graduate Spotlights

Mikita Fuchita, MD

Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology
University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus

I grew up in Bloomington, IL, and Japan and decided to pursue US residency training after graduating from medical school in Tokyo. I was already interested in critical care medicine as my subspecialty at the time of my residency application. Then, cardiothoracic anesthesia and clinical research attracted me during my residency in addition to CCM. The Fall of CA-2, the typical time to apply for a fellowship, felt too early to decide which fellowship to choose. After putting off my fellowship application for a year, I ultimately decided to train in all three fields. 

When searching for my fellowship destination, I looked for institutions that had excellent clinical training in CCM and ACTA. What I learned through the application process was that many institutions had at least one “ideal” program, but not in both. University of Colorado was among the rare institutions that fit my idea of an excellent training environment. My interest in training at CU grew into a desire to be a part of the team after interviewing with the CU faculty members, who impressed me with their abilities to balance work and life while performing at the highest levels clinically and academically. 

I had an aspiration to master evidence-based medicine when I moved to the US. However, my faith in evidence-based medicine slowly faded as I began to understand that most published medical research was fraught with limitations and false assumptions. I also noticed throughout my training that most research findings were not applied at the bedside. It struck me hard one day when I listened to a podcast called Walking Home from the ICU, where Kali Dayton and her guests described an ICU in Utah that transformed into an “awake and walking ICU” after recognizing the long-lasting harm of deep sedation and immobility in the 1990s. Dr. Jason Brainard, my CCM fellowship program director at the time, let me fly to Utah to visit this ICU using my elective rotation. This experience was eye-opening. It taught me how the quality of care can save or break our patients in the ICU and the importance of teamwork, culture, and contextual factors in healthcare. Since then, my focus has shifted from learning the literature to bringing best practices to the bedside.

I feel extremely fortunate to have trained and been surrounded by incredible healthcare staff at CU. My Cardiothoracic ICU colleagues responded with enthusiasm when I shared my vision to bring the “awake and walking ICU” to our unit. The multidisciplinary SOAR (Sedation Off, Awake, and Rehabilitate) initiative was born, and our team received grant support from the IHQSE to operationalize the work. This endeavor continued as I transitioned to the ACTA fellowship, and we’ve had inspiring results from the initiative. The CU ACCM and ACTA fellowship programs and the Department of Anesthesiology have supported my renewed passion for medicine, and I am grateful for the opportunities and mentorship I’ve received throughout this journey. I treasure my fellowship experience at CU and am confident that the clinical, academic, and leadership skills I gained here will help me as I transition into a faculty role.

Chris Lewis, MD

Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology
University of Washington

Background
I’m from Seattle and received my B.A. in Music from the UW (go Huskies!). I went to medical school in Rochester, New York and then completed an anesthesiology residency at the University of Arizona. Since early in my journey through medical training I have been drawn to sick patients and complex physiology so critical care fellowship was a natural path for me.

Why the University of Colorado?
I am someone who prefers a more experiential style of learning, so when looking at fellowships I wanted a program that offered a high acuity and high volume of patients across their ICUs. Colorado is a level 1 trauma center, has busy transplant programs for hearts, lungs, and livers, and is a regional referral center for ECMO and all things MCS. I was confident I would receive excellent clinical training here.

Experiences at CU
This wealth of clinical experiences at CU provided an excellent backdrop for strong critical care training, especially in cardiothoracic and trauma/surgical critical care where the core of the fellowship is based. I was granted a high degree of autonomy which helped develop my skill and confidence managing complex patients. I also felt well-connected to my co-fellows and learned tons just by sharing stories in our fellow workroom or when we overlapped clinically.

In addition to clinical skill and knowledge, CU did an excellent job preparing me to be a team leader in the ICU setting. The role of ICU fellows at CU skews heavily towards supervision (as opposed to independent patient management) and in all the ICUs we worked closely with residents and APPs. The ICU APPs are still some of my favorite people I have worked with; they were both extraordinarily clinically competent and very collaborative in decision making. This made my transition to attendinghood feel seamless even at a new institution, since I had already developed many of these interpersonal skills new attendings can struggle with.

The fellowship was also flexible in helping prepare me for my own unique career goals. I took full advantage of the POCUS and TEE training built into the curriculum and passed both the CCEeXAM and Advanced PTE boards. I started an academic project on ICU-based TEE education that I am continuing in my current academic job. And I spent a month rotating with the liver transplant anesthesiology team in a fellow role to gain more experience and keep one foot in the OR.

Career Preparation
I now attend in a busy academic CTICU that manages heart and lung transplants, LVADs, adult congenital heart disease, complex aortic repairs, and all the VA, VV, and VP ECMO patients at our campus. Additionally, I am one of our transplant anesthesiologists in the OR. I felt very well prepared for all of this by my training at CU and would strongly recommend the fellowship to anyone with similar career goals.