HMS Training Program in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine: BlankFrame

In its current incarnation, the Harvard Program represents the very best of five historically separate fellowships based at the Beth Israel, Brigham & Women’s, Deaconess, Massachusetts General and Boston Veteran’s Affairs Hospitals, making us the largest pulmonary and critical care training program in the nation. Over an incredibly rich forty-year history, the Fellowship has produced internationally recognized authorities on, and fundamental advances in the areas of acute lung injury, asthma and COPD, control of ventilation, sleep medicine and pulmonary vascular disease.

The minimum duration of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship is 36 months, but most choose to train for four years or more. Eighteen months of rigorous clinical training take place in the first two years. Outstanding teaching comes from world-class clinician-educators at each of the major Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals as well as from superb Chest Radiology, Respiratory Care and Pulmonary Pathology Services. The net result is a graduate who scores highly on the ABIM Boards and who is eminently qualified to practice and teach clinical medicine anywhere in the world.

As you explore our website, it should become readily apparent that the depth and breadth of the Harvard Research Program is unparalleled. Harvard Medical School investigators receive more NIH dollars each year than any other institution in the country. In collaboration with world-renowned institutions such as the Whitehead Institute, MIT, the Channing Laboratory and the Harvard School of Public Health, our trainees acquire requisite tools in genetics, genomics, proteomics, molecular epidemiology, cell biology, immunology, physiology and clinical research to become leaders in academic pulmonary and critical care medicine.

What a website cannot readily transmit is the nurturing atmosphere experienced by all who come here. The esprit de corps among Harvard fellows is extremely high and fostered by regular programmatic feedback sessions and an open door policy with a mentor and the Program Director. Fellows and faculty are on a first name basis and frequently socialize. The geographic challenge of the three-mile teaching hospital radius is mitigated by a well-developed shuttle network, an integrated conference and continuity clinic schedule and the use of web-based software including MyResidency, created at Harvard Medical School. Our trainees love Boston with its history, culture and cuisine, ready access to the outdoors and, at least in August, our baseball team.

Once again, welcome to the Harvard Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Training Program. Please enjoy our website and email or call with questions.

David M. Systrom, M.D.

Fellowship Program Director

A message from the Program Director

A message from the
Program Director