Welcome Letter from Program Director, Dr. Desmett

Thank you for your interest in our Critical Care Medicine Fellowship program at Summa Health. We are thrilled to have welcomed our first class of fellows in 2022, and we hope you will consider our program for your Critical Care Medicine training.

Akron City Hospital, the training campus for the ICU fellows at Summa Health, is a Level 1 trauma center with over 700 inpatient beds. The hospital also features a dedicated critical care tower with 78 ICU beds. This facility is shared between medical, surgical, and cardiac care services. These facilities help ensure ICU trainees have the appropriate resources to care for the high-volume, high-acuity population of critically ill patients typical for a large, community hospital.

Summa Health has always been a special place to train due to its hybrid nature as a busy, clinically oriented community hospital that also has close ties to the academic community through its affiliation with Northeast Ohio Medical University. Fellows will routinely interact with medical students, residents, and fellows from other disciplines. In the MICU, the rounding team includes teaching faculty from both Nephrology and Infectious Disease, giving the ICU fellows further opportunities for learning in a multidisciplinary environment. Through NEOMED and the Summa Health Clinical Research Center, ICU fellows will have abundant opportunities for clinical research and scholarly activity during their training.

Using Summa's state-of-the-art simulation lab, critical care fellows at Summa will receive robust training in all critical care medicine procedures, as well as in critical care ultrasound. Our large group of ICU physicians provide 24/7 coverage at Akron City Hospital, and we will ensure that each fellow receives regular one-on-one feedback and close mentorship.

In addition to their robust medical ICU training, our fellows will also rotate with the neurointensive care service, the surgical and cardiothoracic ICU services, palliative care, and pulmonary medicine. Opportunities for other electives that complement each trainee’s personal career goals are also available.

We are excited to train future intensivists here in Akron. We pledge to provide our trainees with the well-rounded, multi-faceted experience necessary to become excellent clinicians and teachers who will be assets to any program upon completion of their fellowship.