The Penn Neurocritical Care team conducts research on a broad range of topics in neurocritical care and has pioneered investigation of advanced technology to monitor brain function in patients with critical brain injury. Patients might gain access to a variety of new therapies by being offered the opportunity to participate in a wide range of clinical trials. These trials cover a broad range of conditions including ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, traumatic brain injury, traumatic spinal cord injury, status epilepticus, brain tumors, and cardiac arrest.
Our Approach to Education:
The Penn Neurocritical Care Program provides education about neurocritical care at multiple levels.
Patients and Families:
The neurocritical care team provides information to patients and their families about nervous system injury through bedside rounds each morning and through private meetings that are arranged in the afternoons. We believe that informed patients and families are better able to make decisions about care.
Doctors and Nurses:
The Penn Neurocritical Care team provides education to other doctors and nurses in a variety of ways. The Penn Neurocritical Care Faculty are invited to other hospitals and to professional meetings across the world to teach about neurocritical care. Locally, the faculty teach in the medical school, the nursing school, and at the bedside. Medical students from Penn and other medical schools may elect to rotate in the NeuroICU. Penn residents from the Neurology and Neurosurgery Departments all rotate through the NeuroICU, as do fellows from Trauma-Critical Care, Medical Critical Care, and Anesthesia Critical Care. For physicians who have completed a residency in neurology, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, internal medicine, emergency medicine, general surgery, or pediatrics, Penn Medicine offers a dedicated fellowship in neurocritical care. The Penn Neurocritical Care fellowship program is one of the largest and most competitive training programs in the country. Outstanding fellows gain experience that spans the full breadth of neurocritical care by caring for patients under the supervision of faculty. Fellows play an integral role in patient care and research, and serve as teachers, themselves, for residents, medical students, and fellows from disparate disciplines and other institutions.