The Pulmonary Clinical Medicine Section (PCMS) was formed over the past year with a mandate to expand and enhance the clinical pulmonary program within the Division of Intramural Research, NHLBI. A primary goal was to start a pulmonary clinical fellowship program to enhance the academic environment within the DIR and to create a pipeline of clinician scientists to grow the pulmonary program. After exploring a number of options and potential program partners, the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) was selected as a partner institution for this program. The first NHLBI/UMMC Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) Research Track fellow started his clinical training in early August 2015. All of the UMMC PCCM fellows are scheduled to spend 4 weeks on the NIH pulmonary consult service as one of their clinical rotations. The first rotating fellow started in July 2015. A combined research and clinical training curriculum is being jointly developed between NIH and UMMC. Fellowship applicants are being recruited through a separate Electronic Residency Application Service number affiliated with the UMMC PCCM fellowship application (http://umm.edu/programs/pulmonary/professionals/pulmonary-fellowship/nih-nhlbi-track. Plans were created and bids were requested for planned renovation of the existing pulmonary function laboratory space that will actually add a 4th testing room and potential expanded testing capacity and create administrative offices for the PCMS. The interface between the pulmonary function testing equipment and the Clinical Center electronic medical record (EMR) system has been significantly enhanced along with increased and more secure storage capacity. This is expected to go live prior to the end of the 2015 calendar year. This upgrade will ensure safer data transfer, decrease the need for paper reporting, enhance the reporting format viewable within the EMR, and facilitate reading of the studies including provision for provisional interpretation by the pulmonary fellow with attending editing/co-signature. Bronchoscopy capabilities were enhanced with the acquisition of improved video monitor viewing capacity in the Clinical Center bronchoscopy suite. An Erbe Cryoprobe system was acquired to enhance the endobronchial interventional capabilities. The pulmonary consultation service continued to provide expert consultations with support from a cadre of nurse practitioners and physician assistants who also rotate through the critical care unit. Capacity of this service has been enhanced by having clinical fellows on service for most of the year.
