Critical Care Medicine

The 48-bed Surgical Intensive Care Unit, the 30-bed Neuro Intensive Care Unit, and the 8-bed Burn Intensive Care Unit, along with the operating rooms, provides training for our students, residents, physician assistants, and fellows, caring for what are some of the most acutely ill patients in the United States. These beds are situated in two hospital towers. Yearly, in collaboration with our surgical colleagues, we manage approximately 3,500 critically ill patients admitted to Shands Hospital at the University of Florida.

At present, our SICU teams admit and care for patients from all surgical specialty services, except Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. The on-call ICU teams are responsible for the care of the patients in their units and, as well, comprise major parts of the Code Blue teams in both the South and North Towers, which respond to all cardiac arrests in the hospital, 24 hours per day.

Each of the SICU teams are staffed by an attending physician with special qualifications in Critical Care Medicine, three to four residents, and one to two fellows; two senior “floating” Physician Assistants provide extender functions in each of the Units and are integrated with our resident teams. Our units are staffed by 13 attending physicians, six of whom are anesthesiologists – although each has training in internal medicine, and / or general surgery as well as critical care medicine- with one critical care nephrologist. Five trauma / intensivist colleagues from the Department of Surgery also rotate with us in the units.

Research interests in the Division include, in the broadest terms, respiratory and cardiovascular physiology, disease-state based outcomes, traumatic brain injury, nutrition, renal physiology, and trauma. We are involved with and have NIH funding for several of these projects. We are proud of our history of mentoring junior faculty, fellows, and residents, and our ability to find other mentors / collaborators either from within the medical school or within the University proper, as needed. Thus, research areas with which we are not involved can be developed with assistance from colleagues within the University.

Finally, we are honored to work with some of the best nurses in the United States, without whom we could not perform our jobs.

Brenda Fahy, MD, FCCM
Professor of Anesthesiology
Division Chief