The Pulmonary and Critical Care fellowship at Temple University Hospital remains one of the strongest and largest academic programs in the nation.  We continue to provide top-of-the-line clinical, research, and educational program offerings. Our program trains 10 physicians per year, and with that we have expanded training sites for our fellows. Our trainees are now performing more airway intubations during their bronchoscopy training weeks, in preparation for independent intubations during their critical care rotations.

Additionally, our ultrasound faculty have expanded our collaborative efforts with other local fellowship programs making the Philadelphia Area Critical Care Ultrasound Program (PA-CUSP) yearly ultrasound course one of the best and largest in the region. Dedicated time is given to our first-year fellows for this comprehensive program. PA-CUSP provides both didactic and hands-on training in basic and advanced ultrasound techniques.

This year, our program proudly announced the first annual award winner of the Stephen Codella Scholarship Fund.  This fund was founded in honor of Temple Class of 2024 Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellow, Stephen Codella, by his family after his passing in 2022.  The award is presented to a fellow who displays excellence in scholarship here at Temple and is aided in presenting their research efforts at the annual American Thoracic Society (ATS) meeting.  The first award winner is Bilal Lashari, MD. Bilal has 22 peer reviewed publications to his name with four more articles that are actively being reviewed for publications.  Additionally, he has 32 abstracts and poster presentations, 10 of which were presented at the 2023 ATS meeting with the help of this fund. Learn more about how to support the Stephen Codella Scholarship Fund.

This past year, Temple also inaugurated the new Stephen Codella MD Fellowship Lounge, where fellows now have a place of their own to study and congregate.  This could not have been accomplished without the generosity of the Codella family. We continue to grow and improve our program to provide the best fellowship training. We are proud of the fellows we have trained. “I would like to thank every individual who has contributed their time, effort, and knowledge to our program,” Maria Elena Vega-Sanchez, MD, Associate Professor of Thoracic Medicine and Surgery, and Program Director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.

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