Fellowship Details

EUFAC Accredited: Yes
Length of Fellowship: 1 year
Start: July 1
Number of Positions: 2-3 per year

Opportunities for advanced practice providers and non-EM physicians will be considered on an individual basis.

Clinical commitment

Fellows are expected to work 64 clinical hours per month as attending physicians in the Emory Healthcare and Grady Memorial Hospital Emergency Departments. Additional information about these clinical sites can be found here.

Didactics

The pediatric and emergency medicine ultrasound fellowships host joint weekly ultrasound didactics for fellows. Sessions are taught by ultrasound faculty, faculty from other subspecialties, and invited speakers both within the institution and elsewhere. These sessions include lecture content, hands on workshops, and image review sessions. The curriculum is designed to cover core content for AEMUS as outlined by the 2023 Core Content for AEMUS document linked here. 

Ultrasound Skills Acquisition

Fellows are expected to acquire and interpret at least 1000 ultrasound exams during the course of their year of training. Fellows are encouraged to obtain a variety of scans and to work on scanning efficiency to better incorporate scanning into their clinical practice. Scan shifts will initially be with direct supervision of ultrasound faculty and then can transition to indirect faculty supervision or independent scanning based on fellows’ experiences and needs. Fellows should aim to spend roughly 40 hours scanning each month.

Scanning opportunities (both independently and with faculty) are available at 5 hospitals in the Atlanta area: 

• Grady Memorial Hospital
• Hughes Spalding Children’s Hospital
• Arthur Blank Children’s Hospital
• Emory University Hospital
• Emory Midtown Hospital

Fellows are also expected to complete elective time outside of the emergency department that will supplement their knowledge of advanced ultrasound concepts. Opportunities include TEE, regional anesthesia, vascular, second- and third-trimester obstetrics, pediatrics, pediatric and adult critical care, and transcranial doppler.

Administration

Fellows are expected to participate in ultrasound section meetings, fellowship interview season, and the annual program evaluation committee. Ultrasound faculty will involve fellows in every aspect of fellowship and section administration which includes machine selection and maintenance, purchasing decisions, troubleshooting and maintenance of image archiving solutions and middleware, discussions of coding and billing, and quality assurance. 

Quality assurance (QA) is done on all ultrasound exams performed at the Grady Emergency Department weekly by ultrasound faculty. Fellows will participate in weekly QA image review during didactics and then transition to the primary QA reviewer row in the second half of the fellowship. This will be done with supervision of ultrasound faculty who will provide feedback on every element of the QA process -- reviewing images, providing feedback to residents and faculty, perform follow ups and follow the call-back protocol for incidental/missed findings or misinterpretations noted during QA.

Teaching

The ultrasound section provides a month-long ultrasound rotation for emergency medicine interns, medical students, physician assistant students, and occasionally off-service residents/fellows from August through June of each academic year. Fellows play an active role in this rotation through providing orientation for the rotation, bedside teaching, scan shifts, and delivering lectures on core content. The goal of this experience is for fellows to complete their year of training with a lecture portfolio and the tools and experience needed to serve as a clerkship director or rotation lead. Fellows will have the opportunity to provide instruction through lectures, skill sessions, hands-on bedside teaching, and small group experiences to medical students, residents, other fellows, faculty, advanced practice providers, international colleagues, and others.

Scholarship

The fellow will participate in ongoing research and develop an individual project to be completed in fellowship, and submit an abstract for presentation at a scientific meeting.

Professional Development

In addition to the many opportunities for professional development provided by the department and at Emory University, ultrasound fellows will be sponsored to attend the annual SCUF Conference, ACEP’s Ultrasound Management Course, and one additional conference during their fellowship year. Additional funding is available if the fellow will be presenting research, teaching or otherwise involved in a national organization in a leadership position.

This year, our EUFAC-accredited program is offering two fellow positions to join our team. Applications are accepted through the Society of Clinical Ultrasound Fellowships website. 

We require a CV, letter of intent, and three letters of reference with your application. After review of SCUF applications, invitations for interviews will be sent in August and on a rolling basis. Interviews will be conducted on the morning of pre-selected dates in September and October and will all be virtual. On interview days, candidates will be given the opportunity to meet the fellowship director, associate fellowship director, core ultrasound faculty and a current fellow. Candidates are expected to participate in the NRMP match. For more information on the match, please refer to the SCUF and NRMP websites. 

While interviews are virtual, we understand that this is a big decision for you and being able to see the city you may call home and meeting your potential future colleagues in person is important. If you are interested in a second look in the fall, please reach out to us and we are happy to coordinate with you. Participation in second looks will not impact an applicant’s placement on the rank list and is only intended to give an applicant a better feel for the program and city if they so desire.