About Our Fellowship

In the dynamic field of Emergency Medicine, the quest for newer technology that is faster, less expensive, and less harmful has made emergency ultrasound a necessity to all providers of emergency medicine. The emergency ultrasound (EUS) fellowship at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego brings together this imaging modality to a health system that specializes in providing smart and cost-effective medicine.

Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, California started an Emergency Ultrasound Fellowship in July 2015. Fellows will have the opportunity to work in San Diego’s highest volume hospital system in the county. We have 3 ERs in San Diego County but fellows go to 2 of the 3 sites (unless they want to go to our newest ER in San Marcos). The 2 central San Diego ERs have over 130k annual visits including 17k pediatric patients annually. They will also teach the residents of our PGY1-3 EM residency program as well as rotating students, faculty, and nurses.

EUFAC accredited: Yes (as of 4/26/2021)

Length of Fellowship: 1 year

Salary: $100,000 plus benefits and 4 weeks of paid vacation, $1500 Educational fund for travel to ultrasound conferences and educational expenses related to ultrasound

Number of Clinical Hours: Two 10-hour clinical shifts per week (all in the ER, none in urgent care or alternative sites)

Other Duties: Teaching EM residents, medical students and faculty through didactics, bedside teaching and ultrasound courses. Later in the fellowship, fellows will also be expected to do scan review of the residents. During the course of the fellowship, the fellow is expected to develop an ultrasound research project.

Number of Sites: 2 EDs (both in central San Diego)

Number of Positions per year: 2

Additional Opportunities: Fellows will have the opportunity to lecture and teach hands-on at local and regional ultrasound courses. Moonlighting opportunities are ample within the department but you can also moonlight externally if you choose.

Educational Experience: Primary ultrasound education is done by the ultrasound faculty. This is done through scanning shifts, scan review, didactics and journal club. Vascular labs and echo lab time is available in the hospital if desired. TEE will be learned in the sim lab before use in the ER and practice can be done with cardiology in the ICU/DOU/outpatient.

Deadline for fellowship application: Rolling

Fellows chosen: NRMP Match Date

Ultrasound Machines: 11 Zonare, 4 Butterfly, 6 Vscans

Ultrasound Probes: TEE, Curvilinear, phased array, endocavitary, linear (standard L10, high frequency L20 and hockey stick L14)

Image Recorder: Qpath

Kaiser Permanente San Diego Medical Center

CO-FELLOWSHIP DIRECTORS

Dasia Esener, MD

Division Director and Co-Fellowship Director

EM Residency and Fellowship: Tufts University/Baystate Medical Center

Years in Position: Since 2015

National Positions:

Prior Co-chair of ACEP Ultrasound Section Fellow subcommittee

Current Co-Editor for ACEP’s Sonoguide

Gabe Rose, DO

Co-Fellowship Director

EM Residency: Mt. Sinai Medical Center, Miami Beach, FL

Ultrasound Fellowship: Mount Sinai West/Morningside (St. Luke’s Roosevelt)

Years in Position: Since 2019

National Positions:

Current Co-Editor for ACEP’s Sonoguide

FELLOWSHIP GRAD REQUIREMENTS

1. Is the EUS fellow required to perform >1000 ultrasound examinations during fellowship? YES

2. Is the EUS fellow required to design at least one research project to be submitted to the home site institutional review board, and commence the project and data collection during the course of the fellowship? YES

3. Is the EUS fellow required to submit at least one abstract as first author and presenter to a national meeting such as ACEP, SAEM, or AIUM during fellowship? YES

4. Is the EUS fellow required to be involved with at least one other ultrasound research project during fellowship for which publication is planned with the fellow as an author? YES

5. Is the EUS fellow required to be involved with various administrative and quality assurance duties including but not limited to internal billing audits, interdepartmental meetings, and monitoring of the credentialing process of colleagues? YES

6. Is the EUS fellow required to prepare and deliver lectures to the department (faculty, residents, medical students, other health care providers) on at least four separate basic emergency ultrasound applications? YES

7. Is the EUS fellow required to show at least 20 hours per month of hands-on teaching of residents and or other faculty in bedside emergency ultrasound? (This includes but is not limited to didactic lectures, bedside teaching, research involvement of residents or faculty, and QA education.) YES

8. Is the EUS fellow required to attend one national emergency ultrasound organization meeting during the year? YES

Past Fellow Peter McCorkell giving a lecture at the inaugural Southwest Ultrasound Regional Fellow’s (SURF) Conference hosted by Kaiser San Diego.

ULTRASOUND PROJECTS

Outside Lectures

Many lecturing/teaching opportunities available and vary by year but include the yearly ACEP Scientific Assembly ultrasound workshops, Naval Medical Center Point-of-Care Ultrasound Course, CalACEP ultrasound course, Rady Children's Hospital Pediatric EM course and the annual Kaiser Permanente National Conference.