The Fellows Track Symposium showcased faculty presentations on clinical issues related to the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep disorders.
On Friday and Saturday, ATS fellows listened and asked questions during 17 faculty presentations on clinical issues related to the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep disorders, including sepsis, COPD, lung cancer, asthma, and pulmonary arterial hypertension. The Fellows Track Symposium provided expert perspective and travel scholarships to 120 pulmonary, critical care, and sleep fellows enrolled in ACGME-accredited, U.S. training programs. The FTS also featured four breakout sessions and one ultrasonography dinner symposium.
“The presentations were much more accessible than I thought they would be. As a second-year fellow, you know a little about a lot of things, but you don’t know much in-depth, so I was worried that the experts on the program would be speaking over my head,” said Suzanne Burke-McGovern, a second-year pediatric pulmonary fellow at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. “There is a great variety of presentations, from critical care to pulmonary diseases to sleep. Jim Donohue gave a great talk on asthma, including new treatment modalities.”
Some attendees were repeat FTS participants, like ATS member Dipen Kadaria, MD, a third-year pulmonary and critical care fellow at the University of Tennessee. “Many new publications and studies have come out in the past year, and they have been included in this year’s symposium, which has made it really great,” said Dr. Kadaria. “It’s a great course, and I’ve attended the FTS two years now. I’ll definitely recommend it to my junior fellows.”
The FTS also gave fellows an opportunity to connect with new colleagues. “The Fellows Track Symposium has been a fantastic opportunity to meet with other fellows around the country—I’m really glad I had this opportunity,” said Kelly Sweerus, a second-year pulmonary and critical care fellow from the University of California, San Francisco, and first-time FTS participant.
The FTS was led by Course Chair Deborah Shure, MD, who invited a co-chair to represent each pillar—Carolyn Welsh, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Colorado in Denver, for the pulmonary portion, Barbara Phillips, MD, MPH, professor of medicine and medical director of the sleep laboratory at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, for the sleep program, and Neil MacIntyre, MD, professor of medicine and chief of clinical services at Duke University in Durham, N.C., for the critical care program.
“We had people from all over the country attend; they seemed really engaged this year,” Dr. Welsh said. “Each topic may not be of relevance to each person, but there’s something you can learn from topics, even outside your own area. We’ve had a lot of interest in lung cancer diagnosis and screening from adult-medicine participants—it’s such a rapidly changing field.”
The 2013 FTS was supported by educational grants from Underwriting Supporter Genentech, Educational Supporters Actelion Pharmaceuticals, US, Inc.; AstraZeneca LP; Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. In-Kind Support was provided by SonoSite, Inc.