Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Fellowship Program

Our program offers exposure to all facets of pulmonary and critical care medicine, including training in ECMO, interventional pulmonology, lung transplant, and trauma critical care to name a few.  Fellows will learn from a multi-disciplinary team of faculty, who are dedicated to teaching and mentorship.

As the busiest tertiary care hospital in DC, we serve a large, relatively underserved community. We also serve as a referral/receiving center for complex medical, surgical, and cardiac cases from throughout the DC/Maryland/Virginia region. As such, our fellows make a real impact on patients’ lives while gaining experience with a variety of clinical pathology. Our fellows graduate well-prepared for any type of Pulmonary and/or Critical Care practice.

We also pride ourselves on ensuring clinical competency at the time of graduation. We have developed outstanding longitudinal curricula in point-of-care ultrasound, mechanical ventilation, airway management, pulmonary-function test interpretation, and much more. Upon graduation, you will be ready not only to practice pulmonary-critical care medicine but will also be able to successfully run a busy clinical service.

The pulmonary and critical care training program curriculum is structured so that fellows can build their clinical experiences on a solid understanding of science and evidence-based medicine. The curriculum sets goals and objectives for each year of training that promote progressively independent clinical experiences and teaching in the latter years.

Fellows are generally free of clinical duties during the first month of training so that they can devote this time to building a strong educational foundation. During the first month of fellowship, fellows take part in an interactive education block with other fellows from the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area (NIH, Georgetown University, Howard University, George Washington University, University of Maryland, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and Johns Hopkins University). Faculty from these institutions deliver didactics, and fellows are given hands-on experience in simulation labs.

Through didactic lectures, seminars, and demonstrations, fellows are taught the principles of evidence-based medicine and fundamental concepts in pulmonary medicine, critical care medicine, mechanical ventilation, non-invasive ventilation, and pulmonary function testing. Fellows also develop procedural competence as they rotate through a variety of ICU and pulmonary rotations and attend various workshops on radiology, critical care ultrasonography, bronchoscopy, and airway management. Workshops offer unique learning opportunities through the use of computerized mannequins (patient-simulation exercises) and procedure simulators (chest tubes, central lines, intubation, cricothyroidotomy, etc).

MedStar Washington Hospital Center (MWHC) is the primary training venue for our fellowship. Annually, this facility logs more than 36,000 admissions, 86,000 emergency department visits, and 390,000 outpatient visits. The breadth and complexity of cases vary from the common to the rare, providing fellows with a comprehensive experience.

Fellows also undertake clinical rotations and may pursue research opportunities at the NIH and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. Fellows spend one month in the intensive care unit at NIH, treating a unique patient population with rare or complicated diseases enrolled in research protocols, and also rotate in the medical ICU and pulmonary consultation service at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. Fellows will enhance their experience in advanced lung disease and pulmonary transplantation at the Inova Fairfax Hospital, cystic fibrosis at the Children's National Medical Center, interventional bronchoscopy at Inova Fairfax Hospital, and sleep medicine at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. The Trauma-critical care experience at MWHC is supplemented by a monthlong rotation at the University of Maryland Shock-Trauma Center ICU.

Regularly scheduled conferences are an integral part of the training program. The conferences cover a wide variety of topics and support the fellows' clinical experiences including:

• DC5 Critical Care Lecture Series: Weekly virtual conference with all of the region’s critical care fellows covering core critical care topics
• DC5 Pulmonary Lecture Series: Twice monthly virtual conference with all of the region’s pulmonary fellows covering core pulmonary topics

• Critical Care Core Conference
• Pulmonary Core Conference
• Fellow Wellness Sessions
• Radiology Conference
• Critical Care Ultrasound Conference
• Basic Science and Physiology Conference
• Journal Club
• Research Conference
• ICU M&M Conference (Quality and Safety Conference)
• Pathology Conference
• Ventilator/Simulation Conferences
• Attending Didactic Conferences
• Airway Management Conference

Plus weekly:

• Internal Medicine Grand Rounds
• Tumor Board

Years 1 and 2:

Year 3:

In addition, all PCCM fellows have at least one clinic rotation in which they rotate through various outpatient pulmonary specialty clinics, including:

• Lung nodule/cancer clinic
• Pulmonary hypertension clinic
• Sarcoidosis clinic
• Private community-based pulmonary medicine clinic
• Private academic attending clinics
• Sleep medicine clinic

Our faculty and fellows have been very productive with a large number of publications every year. Below is a list of select recent publications.

Maximous S, Acho M, Lee BW, Woods C, et al. Decay in Physiologic Knowledge since Medical School among Critical Care Fellows (DIP Study). ATS Scholar; Vol 6, Iss 2, pp 191-201, 2025.

Amirshahi R, Alnababteh M, Woods C, et al. Ventilator Waveform Interpretation Skills of Attending Intensivists Relative to Critical Care Fellows (VISA) Study. ATS Scholar; Vol 7, Iss 2, pp 116-122, 2026.

Epidemiology and Outcomes Among Adults with Severe Community-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia Hospitalized in the United States, 2021-2024. Zilberberg MD, Greenberg M, Nathanson BH, Andan QE, Curt V, Shorr AF.Crit Care Med. 2026 Jun 3.

Ventilator-associated pneumonia: newer insights that can drive improved outcomes. Shorr AF, Zilberberg MD.Curr Opin Crit Care. 2026 May 15.

Diagnostic Performance of Point-of-Care Immunoassay Measurements of Pancreatic Stone Protein for Sepsis Detection in ICU Patients: A Prospective, Multicenter, Biomarker-Blinded Study. Shorr AF, Kollef MH, Wunderink RG, Jauregui-Peredo LE, Bernard AC, Kim HK, Balk RA, Cristofaro P, Levy MM.Crit Care Med. 2026 May 1;54(5):1147-1157

Antibiotic therapy for severe bacterial infections. Timsit JF, Ling L, de Montmollin E, Bracht H, Conway-Morris A, De Bus L, Falcone M, Harris PNA, Machado FR, Paiva JA, Paterson DL, Poulakou G, Roberts JA, Roger C, Shorr AF, Tabah A, Lipman J.Intensive Care Med. 2025 Oct;51(10):1867-1885.

Peak oxygen consumption is positively associated with estimates of oxygen extraction and microvascular blood volume in veterans with chronic kidney disease. Gollie JM, Kokkinos PF, Patel SS, Libin AV, Holley AB, Shara NM, Hazel CG, Kim DJ, Blackman MR.Am J Physiol Renal Physiol. 2026 May 1;330(5):F631-F640.

Predictors of Respiratory Oscillometry Measurements in a Healthy Population. Holley AB, Watson NL, Kuenstler MR, Fabyan KD, Gonzales MA, Hayes JA, Morris MJ.Respir Care. 2026 Mar;71(3):272-280. 

Effects from using a race-neutral prediction equation for interpreting spirometry in an active-duty military population. Holley AB, Oweis E, Briggs E, McMahon MJ, Morris MJ.Respir Med. 2025 Nov;248:108400. 

Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing in the Study of Active Duty Military for Pulmonary Disease Related to Environmental Deployment Exposures (STAMPEDE) III. Morris MJ, Holley AB, Anderson JT, McInnis IC, Gonzales MA, Rosas MM, Barber BS, Murillo CG, Aden JK, Huprikar NA, Walter RJ.Respir Care. 2025 Dec;70(12):1530-1537. 

A Rare Case of Endobronchial Metastasis of Uterine Leiomyosarcoma Presenting as Bilateral Spontaneous Pneumothorax. Gupta J, Girish A, Masri I, Wang-Memoli JS, Obeidat A.Cureus. 2025 Oct 31;17(10):e95837