About
Pulmonary, Critical Care, & Sleep Medicine
The Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine (Yale-PCCSM) is a rapidly growing, dynamic academic section with a strong commitment to outstanding patient care, cutting-edge research, and education, with a special focus on well-being, equity and climate. The number of our faculty has increased significantly in the last few years. Of the 57 faculty, 50% are women and 10% identify as members of under-represented in medicine (URM).
Clinical
Section faculty carry out the clinical mission on the floors, units, and clinics at the York Street and San Raphael campuses of Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH), the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, and North Haven Medical Center. Inpatient services include the 60-bed Medical Intensive Care Units (MICU) with a 30-bed step down unit, the 100-bed tele-ICU unit that covers many hospitals statewide, the Consult Service, and the Thoracic Interventional Program, which performs thousands of complex procedures annually. The section’s Ambulatory services include the Yale Sleep Centers, the Yale ILD Center of Excellence, the Yale Center for Asthma and Airways Disease (YCAAD), the Yale Pulmonary Vascular Disease Center, the Yale Adult CF Center, the Yale COPD program, the Thoracic Oncology Program, and the Comprehensive Pulmonary Program. Over 10,000 patients are seen at Yale-PCCSM outpatient facilities, a number which will continue to grow after the completion of additional outpatient facilities. The team was recently ranked 16th in the U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Hospitals” list.
Education
In recent years, the size and depth of the section’s education mission has significantly increased. This year we have 26 fellows, including 17 traditional pulmonary/critical care medicine fellows, four critical care medicine fellows, four sleep medicine fellows and one interventional pulmonary fellow. Research training, an integral part of the traditional pulmonary/critical care medicine fellowship, is usually supported through an NIH-NHLBI T32 grant. In the past decade, 85% of Yale-PCCSM fellowship graduates have gone on to have academic careers, including 13 of that have joined the faculty at Yale. In addition to the fellows, multiple postdoctoral, predoctoral and postbaccalaureate research trainees receive their training at Yale-PCCSM laboratories and research programs. Continued education of faculty is considered an integral part of the education mission of Yale-PCCSM. All faculty participate in individual career development mentoring programs, and faculty retreats, regardless if researchers, educators or clinicians.
Research
Yale-PCCSM has a strong tradition of research excellence, which has been augmented in recent years. In addition to the clinical centers and programs, two research centers, the Center for Precision Pulmonary Medicine (P2MED) and the Center for Pulmonary Research Infection and Treatment (CPIRT) were added in the last five years. Yale-PCCSM boasts a well-rounded research portfolio with NIH-funded researchers in most areas of lung research, including the pathogenesis, progression and outcomes of asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, acute lung injury, pulmonary vascular disease, sleep disordered breathing, and pulmonary fibrosis and ranging in disciplines from bench research to translational and clinical research, genomics, informatics and big data. Research at Yale-PCCSM has undergone an unprecedented growth spurt in recent years. NIH funding per year increased more than two-fold, from $6,167,642 in fiscal year 2013 to $12,647,936 in fiscal year 2018, accompanied with a three-fold increase in productivity; publications authored and co-authored by members of Yale-PCCSM increased from 42 in 2013 to 137 in 2018, including publications in the top biomedical journals such as New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Medicine, Science Translational Medicine, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, e-Life, JAMA Internal Medicine, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, and European Respiratory Journal (see all publications here). Importantly, the increase in productivity has not been limited to federally funded researchers, but has included all members of Yale-PCCSM.