Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship

The Hyperbaric and Undersea Medicine Fellowship is celebrating its 26th year of training fellows.  We have a large and diverse staff, and large patient volumes that offer an extraordinary opportunity for our Fellows.  We are ACGME accredited for 5 training positions a year, making us the largest ACGME fellowship in the United States.  The Fellowship is a one year in length consisting of primary site responsibilities shared at our West Jefferson Medical Center Hyperbaric Medicine Department and University Medical Center- a Level One Trauma Center in the heart of New Orleans.

 

LSU UHM UPDATES:

 

• Keith Van Meter, MD, PEDS / ABEM, UHM / ABPM FACEP:   Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship Founder and Section Chief of LSU Emergency Medicine Program (formerly the Charity Emergency Medicine Residency).  Dr. Van Meter is truly one of the founders and an unparalleled leader in Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine.  Dr. Van Meter is the 2009 recipient of the Albert Behnke Award, the most prestigious award in Hyperbaric Medicine.  In 2008 he was awarded the Edgar M. End Memorial Award in Hyperbaric Medicine.  Recent publications include the Exceptional Blood Loss Anemia Chapter in the most recent edition of the Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Committee Report (2008), as well as the Diabetic Foot Ulcers Chapter in the new text Infectious Diseases:  Emergency Department Diagnosis and Management, as well as the Hyperbaric Oxygen in Emergency Medicine Chapter in KK Jain's Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine.  Dr. Van Meter continues his rigorous Please also review Dr. Van Meter's intricate and seminal work concerning the benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy during resuscitation

   

• Paul Harch, MD, EM / ABPS, UHM / ABHM :   Immediate Past Program Director for the Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship, Clinical Professor (Department of Medicine, Section of Emergency Medicine), and the Medical Director for the LSU Hyperbaric Medicine Department.  In 2008, Dr. Harch was named both the Hyperbaric Medicine Physician of the Year and a finalist for the Hyperbaric Medicine Innovator of the Year by the Richard A. Neubauer Research Institute.  Dr. Harch has launched an IRB-approved pilot trial of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy use in chronic blast-induced traumatic brain injury (TBI post-concussion syndrome) and TBI with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  He has also recently secured a $1.2 million congressional appropriation to perform a randomized controlled study of HBOT in TBI and PTSD.  Please review Dr. Harch's book, "The Oxygen Revolution" [Hatherleigh Press, New York].

 

• Tracy Leigh LeGros, MD, PhD, UHM / ABEM, FACEP, FAAEM:    Current Program Director for the Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship and Assistant Clinical Professor for the LSU Emergency Medicine Residency Program.  Dr. LeGros is also a Medical Director for the Emergency Medicine Services Programs (Nunez Community Paramedic College).  Dr. LeGros is also a recurrent national lecturer in Emergency Medicine for the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the University of Pennsylvania sponsored Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Board Review Course.  Recently, Dr. LeGros is the immediate Past Chairwoman of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Section for ACEP and the President Elect of the Gulf Coast Chapter of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.  She is also the Co-Chairman of the UHMS Fellowship Committe, and serves on the Publications Committee and the Membership Committee of UHMS.

 

• Heather Murphy-Lavoie, MD, UHM / ABEM, FAAEM:   Associate Program Director for the Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship, Assistant Residency Director for the LSU Emergency Residency, and the Assistant Director of Faculty Development for the LSU Emergency Medicine Section.  Dr. Murphy has published extensively on the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for ophthalmological diseases, including:  the KK Jain Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine (HBOT and Ophthalmology Chapter), the newest revision of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Society Committee Report (Central Retinal Artery Occlusion Indication Chapter), and "Acute Vision Loss" [J La Med Soc].  Dr. Murphy is also a recurrent national lecturer in Emergency Medicine for ACEP.  She has authored two chapters in the Adam's Emergency Medicine Textbook (Dysbarism Chapter and the Regional Anesthesia Chapter).  She has also authored a book chapter in Slaven's Infectious Diseases in Emergency Medicine (Diabetic Foot Wounds).

 

The LSU/ UMC Hyperbaric Medicine Clinic, located at

2000 Canal Street   New Orleans, Louisiana 70112

 

 LSU UNDERSEA & HYPERBARIC MEDICINE FELLOWSHIP

Our Fellowship is a diverse, multi-faceted, comprehensive training program in Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine that consists of sound clinical, didactic, and research components.  We were granted ACGME Accreditation in 2007 for FIVE Fellowship Positions beginning in the 2008 academic year. This represents the largest number of fellowship positions and largest accredited hyperbaric medicine fellowship in the United States. The strength of the program lies in the combination of expert faculty, exceptional clinical sites, a large volume of patients that span the range of accepted, and experimental indications, and ample research opportunities.

Our faculty consists of some of the most accomplished physicians in hyperbaric medicine.  The fellowship curriculum is comprehensive didactically and clinically, and covers all of the required Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine specialty topics.  Fellows advance their clinical responsibility through informal and formal feedback mechanisms as they rotate through 10 clinical months that include primary and affiliated training sites as well as diving medicine rotations.  Addtionally, the Hyperbaric Fellowship includes a research rotation where fellows work on a project of their choosing.  They are exposed to both acute and chronic conditions and simultaneously teach residents, interns, medical students, and diver medics.  Fellows maintain their primary skills through employment in their primary specialty.  Each fellow operates in a scholarly environment through direct weekly interactions with the faculty who are actively engaged in basic science and clinical research.  Research and research methodologies are discussed through conferences, literature reviews, and interaction with the Ph.D researchers at the Baromedical Research Institute.  By the end of the fellowship, each fellow completes a research project that is presented at a regional or national meeting.

  Dr. Gregory Shamitko, MD (2016-2017 LSUHSC Hyperbaric Fellow)

  Dr. Micah Siegel, MD ( 2016-2017 LSUHSC Hyperbaric Fellow)

  Dr. Brett Kathmann, MD ( 2016-2017 LSUHSC Hyperbaric Fellow)

The combination of the two training sites with the Baromedical Research Institute, the mix of patients, access to the sport and commercial diving communities in the Gulf of Mexico, a diverse faculty with extensive diving and hyperbaric medicine experience, and active research make this Louisiana State University program extremely strong and diversified. The 100% success rate of our Fellows with the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Boards is testament to the strength of our program. The program is currently accepting applications - We hope you'll join us!!