Our Program emphasizes quality didactic and interactive Conferences. Conferences are held almost daily from 12 – 1 pm with Thursdays reserved for Medicine Grand Rounds and Friday for administrative and research meetings. All conferences are also available for live streaming via Zoom.
Core Didactic Conferences
This series covers essential pulmonary and general medical practice topics given mostly by faculty and some by fellows. Selected topics are intended to be an essential but not exhaustive part of the pulmonary and critical care medicine curriculum. These lectures should be state-of-the-art, evidence-based presentations of assigned topics. The series is designed with some topics being repeated every year and others to be covered at least once over the course of a three year fellowship.
Pulmonary/Critical Care Case Conferences
These conferences provide an opportunity for fellows to present current cases of interest, either for instructive purposes or for clinical input. Primarily, the MU critical care fellow, MU consult fellow or VA fellow present the cases, however, any fellow or faculty member may present a case. Case presentations are followed by a brief review of pertinent, recent literature on the same subject.
Journal Club
During these conferences, fellows or faculty members present one or two scientific papers of current pulmonary or critical care relevance. The focus of this conference is to carefully dissect and analyze the methods, approach and scientific worth of the papers. The presenting fellows are paired with a faculty supervisor for these conferences and are responsible for reviewing the background literature, methodology, statistical analysis and limitations of the papers. Papers are made available electronically or in hard copy form to faculty and fellows at least several days prior to the date of the conference.
Research Conferences/ Meetings
These conferences provide an excellent opportunity for faculty and fellows to present aspects of their research work. These can range from giving a literature review of research questions they are currently investigating to discussing the results of their own ongoing or completed projects. Research conferences scheduled before the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), American Thoracic Society (ATS) or Society of Critical Care Medicine’s (SCCM) annual meetings or other national or international symposiums may be used by our physicians as practice sessions for their planned presentations. Fellows are encouraged to meet with their faculty advisors at least one week beforehand to review any planned presentations.
Basic Science Conferences
These conferences highlight physiology, pharmacology, immunology, cell biology and molecular biology as the topics relate to pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. In addition, research methodology, biostatistics, clinical epidemiology, continuous quality improvement, end-of-life care and medical ethics are also covered. Basic Science conferences are held once a month.
Multi-disciplinary Conferences
These are combined conferences with the Department of Pathology and are scheduled on a monthly basis. Histologic or cytologic findings of patients seen by the critical-care physicians or those on the Pulmonary Consult Service are reviewed. Correlation is also made with the radiologic appearance and the patient’s clinical history. The presenter is required to bring all pertinent radiologic studies to the conference.
Tumor Board Meetings
These meeting take place at the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center twice a month with input from our group as well as Thoracic Surgery, Medical and Radiation Oncology, Pathology, Radiology as well as research scientists and cancer center support staff. Patient cases are discussed and input obtained from all groups to come up with comprehensive management plans.
Radiology Conferences
These are combined conferences with physicians in the Department of Radiology, the purpose of which is to enhance the ability of our fellows to interpret radiologic findings, develop clinical diagnoses and make radiologic-pathologic-clinical correlations. ICU and pulmonary consult patients’ cases are reviewed and discussed with a focus on their radiologic findings. In addition, radiologists may also present cases with classic chest radiologic findings for discussion.
Visiting Lecturer Conferences
These conferences are typically given by visiting faculty, faculty members from other MU divisions or departments. These presentations provide in-depth literature review of clinically relevant topics covering a wide range of areas in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine.
