The Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship Program is a two-year Royal College accredited program. Trainees gain the knowledge, skills, experience, and attitudes necessary to function as competent and ethical specialist in pediatric critical care medicine. Our McMaster PICU residency training committee and competence committee strive to ensure our trainees receive a robust and responsive educational experience, utilizing the Royal College Competence by Design framework.

At the completion of the program, trainees are eligible to take the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons subspecialty fellowship examinations in pediatric critical care.

The training program is primarily based out of the Michael G. DeGroote PICU at McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. It is a 12-bed unit that functions as a referral centre for the regions of Waterloo-Wellington and Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant, which serves a community of 2.2 million people. Additional training is provided at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta.

This fellowship program is accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

The program seeks applicants who are enthusiastic about pediatric critical care, but also exhibit honesty, integrity, compassion, and a respect for diversity. We strongly encourage residents to have experience and training over and above their core pediatric critical care rotation in pediatric residency training (ie., critical care or anesthesia electives; PALS training; ATLS training). As McMaster has a strong focus on both clinical and scholarly training, candidates will be selected based on their clinical experience and performance to-date as well as their academic and research interests.

Application details and deadlines can be found on the McMaster Postgraduate Medical Education website at the link below.

McMaster Postgraduate Medical Education (PGME) provides an environment where learners can develop the skills to become expert physicians and leaders in health care.

The length of training is two years.

The two-year fellowship program consists of:

• Minimum of 13 months in PICU.
• Three blocks of pediatric cardiac ICU
• One block of pediatric anesthesiology
• Research/scholarly activity

Additional elective/selective time is tailored to trainees’ personal learning goals and objectives.

The majority of training is set in the pediatric intensive care unit, under the close supervision of the staff intensivist. This training includes daytime shifts and in-house call requirements. In the Transition to Practice phase of training, trainees will also have the opportunity to act as junior attending, which consists of supervising junior fellows and taking at-home calls.

The Michael G. DeGroote pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is a 12-bed unit that functions as a referral centre for the regions of Waterloo-Wellington and Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant, which serves a community of 2.2 million people. The PICU is a general medical/surgical critical care centre for pediatric patients aged 17 and under, except for premature infants.

Care in the PICU is delivered by a multi-disciplinary team of: pediatric intensivists, specialized pediatric critical care nurses, registered respiratory care practitioners, clinical pharmacists, social workers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, a dietitian, child life specialists, and chaplains. The PICU also supports the McMaster Children’s Hospital Pediatric Critical Care Response Team also known as the PACE Team. PACE provides acute assessment and management of critically ill children within the hospital and provides extramural support to the region by providing 24-7 telephone access to a pediatric intensivist who is available to offer advice to community physicians regarding patient management or transport.

Additional training in pediatric cardiac critical care is provided at Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario and Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta.

• McMaster Children’s Hospital, Hamilton
• Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto
• Stollery Children’s Hospital, Edmonton

The Division of Pediatric Critical Care has a strong research mandate. Many division members hold a variety of research grants, have contributed important academic work to the critical care landscape, and are members of the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group. Multiple faculty members have specialized training in health research methodology, as well as in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics.

Trainees may have up to six months protected time from daytime clinical duties during their two-year program to conduct a scholarly project. The duration of protected time is dependent on each individual trainee’s progress within the program and the nature of the proposed scholarly activity.

Trainees also participate in the McMaster University evidence-based medicine for subspecialty pediatric residents course.