Why Choose CU?
For 2023, the University of Colorado Hospital was ranked #1 in Colorado for the 12th year in a row and was nationally ranked in 2 specialties by U.S. News & World Report. Our institution boasts a proud history of innovation including the world’s first successful liver transplant, the initial description of acute respiratory distress syndrome, and more recent innovations such as the development of novel surgical approaches including the Buffalo Trunk technique to decrease operative times in aortic arch replacement.
In 2023, our hospital continues to grow with the opening of our new Tower 3, which will include 215 new inpatient beds, 10 additional operating rooms, a surgical step-down unit, and an expansion of our Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit (CTICU). Our clinical services also continue to grow with increasing numbers of transplant patients, referrals for advanced surgical and medical care, and multidisciplinary care teams.
The Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Colorado is a large academic department with over one-hundred clinical and research faculty located just outside the city limits of Denver, Colorado. The Section of Critical Care currently includes 19 critical care faculty, providing clinical care in four intensive care units at the University of Colorado Hospital. These units include the Surgical-Trauma Intensive Care Unit (STICU), Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit (CTICU), Burn Intensive Care Unit (BICU), and Telemedicine Intensive Care Unit (TeleICU). Additionally, we hold close relationships with critical care colleagues from the Departments of Medicine, Surgery, Neurosurgery, and Pediatrics working in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU), Neuro Intensive Care Unit (NeuroICU) at UCH, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children’s Hospital of Colorado, and Surgical Intensive Care Units at Denver Health Medical Center.
Our program graduates outstanding intensivists who go on to successful careers in academic medicine as well as private practice. Additionally, some of our graduates choose to remain on as faculty at the University of Colorado and have contributed to the academic, research and educational missions of our program.
University of Colorado Hospital
Our hospital is located outside of Denver in Aurora, Colorado. We are a large quaternary care hospital, a Level 1 Trauma Center, an ELCO ECMO Center of Excellence, and the only academic medical center in the Rocky Mountain region. Annual inpatient admissions are greater than 50,000, including 4,000 transfers from other facilities. We offer a full range of transplant options for patients with end-stand disease, in 2022 this included heart (62), lung (40), liver (129), kidney (307) and pancreas (7) transplants.
With the opening of the new Tower 3, our hospital will grow to 893 inpatient beds. To provide top quality critical care for our patients, we have multiple subspecialized intensive care units including the Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit (24 beds), the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit (17 beds), Burn Intensive Care Unit (17 beds), Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (24 beds), Neurology/Neurosurgery Intensive Care Unit (24 beds), Medical Intensive Care Unit (24 beds), as well as our Telemedicine Intensive Care Unit. Notably, our Burn and Frostbite Center is the first and longest-standing American Burn Association (ABA) in the Rocky Mountain region and remains one of 63 verified American Burn Association (ABA) locations in the United States.
Research, Leadership & Education
The department boasts a prodigious research program, including grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH funding rank 15th as of 2022), the Department of Defense, and various non-profit foundations. There are multiple funded physician scientist investigators in the Section of Critical Care, as well as an opportunity for a funded T32 fellowship position.
Department of Anesthesiology Critical Care faculty actively participate in formal education, basic and clinical research, quality improvement, and hospital administration. Leadership positions include medical directorship of Surgical Critical Care, co-medical directorship of the STICU, and medical directorship of the CTICU at University of Colorado Hospital. Our faculty also hold positions on many critical care committees including: quality improvement, trauma, resuscitation, pharmacy and therapeutics, ethics, quality assurance, and executive OR committees.
As part of the program, our fellows present at local, regional and national conferences. Funding for travel and conference registration is provided by the Department for fellows presenting at these events.
Curriculum & Clinical Experience
A core strength of our medium-sized critical care fellowship is the ability to tailor our curriculum and elective experience for our fellows to provide the most benefit as they look towards their future careers. This includes a wide variety of didactic, professional development, and networking opportunities to help our fellows develop relationships both locally and nationally. Our list of elective opportunities continues to increase as we explore exciting new educational programs and options for our fellows as they focus their career goals. We also emphasize a well-rounded core critical care experience, facilitating our graduates successful transition into practice in a wide variety of critical care environments.