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Welcome to the Division of Pulmonary Disease, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine. We are proud of our tradition of delivering excellent patient care and educating outstanding pulmonary and critical care specialists for both practice in the private world and for academic service.

Led by Mario Castro, MD, the division has doubled in size in recent years, in both the number of faculty and the number of fellows in our program. The division excels in all three missions of the School of Medicine: clinical care, education and research.

The division boasts the largest Adult Cystic Fibrosis Center in the Midwest. We are also nationally certified as a center of excellence for multiple conditions: Pulmonary Hypertension, Pulmonary Fibrosis, Lymphangioleiomyomatosis, and Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia Syndrome.

Education

Our ACGME accredited Pulmonary Critical Care Fellowship Program has a 100% board pass rate for all boards over the past five years, and trains our young men and women to either enter clinical practice or become successful academic physicians. All of our fellows are active in clinical research and present their work at national meetings. Numerous of them have launched successful academic careers with national reputations for the work that they began during their fellowship training.

Our faculty members have co-chaired the Cardio-Pulmonary module for pre-clinical medical students for over a decade. We are also very active in problem-based learning groups for the pre-clinical students. We oversee the required critical care selective for all medical students who matriculate at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

Our division is responsible for administration of the Medical Center's Zamierowski Institute for Experiential Learning, the region's premier simulation education center; we oversee curriculum development and execution of simulation education for the School of Medicine, the School of Allied Health, the School of Nursing, the University of Kansas Hospital, and the Graduate Medical Education program.

Members of the division are recognized for their teaching, and have won the highest teaching awards in the institution: The Rainbow Award (given by the Medical Student Assembly), the Ruth Bohan Teaching Professorship (most prestigious teaching award voted by faculty), and the W.T. Kemper Teaching Fellowship. Additionally, the annual Internal Medicine Teaching Awards for both faculty and fellows have come to Pulmonary and Critical Care division members on numerous occasions.

Research

We have a robust program of clinical investigation, with specific interests in the following conditions:

  • Sepsis
  • Pulmonary Hypertension
  • Cystic Fibrosis
  • Interstitial Lung Disease
  • Asthma
  • Hemodynamic monitoring
  • Sleep research

The division's research is funded by the NIH, the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the CHEST Foundation, and other funding agencies, as well as industry sponsors.

Internal Medicine

University of Kansas Medical Center
Internal Medicine
Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine Division
Mailstop 3007
3901 Rainbow Boulevard
Kansas City, KS 66160
Phone: 913-588-6045