Division of Critical Care

The Division of Critical Care provides critical care services in the four surgical intensive care units (ICUs) at BIDMC:

• Trauma Surgical Intensive Care Unit (TSICU): A 10-bed unit caring for trauma, thoracic and acute care surgery patients admitted largely through the emergency room. Coverage of this unit is shared 50% with the Division of Surgical Critical Care.
• Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU): An eight-bed unit caring for a variety of surgical patients including transplant, hepato-biliary and general surgery. Coverage of this unit is shared 50% with the Division of Surgical Critical Care.
• Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU): A 15-bed unit caring for patients undergoing cardiac and vascular surgery. This unit is covered 100% of the time by the Division of Anesthesia Critical Care.
• Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit (Neuroscience ICU): An eight-bed unit caring for patients with neurology and neurosurgical patients. Coverage of this unit is shared 50% with the Department of Neurology.

All of the surgical ICUs are semi-closed, and patients are cared for by multidisciplinary critical care teams:

• The SICU and TSICU teams consist of an attending critical care physician, a critical care fellow and dedicated house officers from the Departments of Anesthesia, Surgery and Emergency Medicine.
• The CVICU team consists of an attending critical care physician, a nurse practitioner/physician assistant and an attending cardiac surgeon.
• The Neuroscience ICU team consists of an attending critical care physician, critical care fellow, neurology resident and nurse practitioner.
• Overnight and on weekends, each unit is covered by a call resident (SICU/TSICU) or nurse practitioner/physician assistant (Neurosciences ICU and CVICU). Each night of the week, a single anesthesia attending provides in-house coverage of all four surgical units and is assisted by an on-call fellow.

The division is actively involved in the ICU coverage of our community affiliates, including BID Plymouth and BID Milton.

We provide numerous education and training opportunities, including our residencies and rotations, that allow physicians and medical students train alongside the world’s leading critical care specialists, helping them expand their skills and deepen their clinical experience.

Our education and training programs include:

• Anesthesia Elective Rotation
• Obstetric Anesthesia Rotation
• Surgical Intensive Care Rotation
• Surgery Clerkship Anesthesia Rotation
• Surgery Clerkship Perioperative Medicine Rotation

Our research professionals are at the cutting edge of advances in anesthesia, critical care and pain medicine. By driving discoveries in these vital areas of medicine, our physicians are able to provide patients with the most advanced, evidence-based treatment options available.