Research is an integral part of our Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship. In fact, many of the principal investigators in NYU Langone’s Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine have also trained here.

The goal of the research component of your training is to introduce you to the techniques and skills that are necessary to conduct basic, translational, and clinical research in lung disease. This training may direct you toward an academic career, and we provide opportunities for an additional research year (or years) to pursue advanced projects. You also have opportunities to broaden your exposure to epidemiology, biostatistics, and state-of-the-art laboratory developments that are rapidly becoming essential to the practice of medicine in the 21st century.

This research training is required in the third year of your fellowship. Preparation begins in your first year, as you narrow down your interests to one area, which may be anything from asthma to critical care outcomes. Our division conducts research in several areas that may be of interest to you. A core research curriculum is also a valuable part of your training.

Fellowship Research Project

Our faculty members advise and mentor you as you develop your research interests and project.

First Year

At the beginning of your first year, you are assigned a research advisor who introduces you to the division’s scientific activities. You and your advisor meet about once a month to review your progress on selecting a mentor and a project.

You also attend a one-day research retreat in the fall, where you meet research faculty and junior faculty who have chosen basic, translational, or clinical research careers. In addition to learning about the activities in our division’s laboratories, you receive advice on choosing a mentor, how to pursue a research career, concepts of grant design, and how to approach prerequisites for projects, such as investigational review board application approvals.

During January and February, the first year class has a dedicated research workshop with many members of our research faculty.

In the spring of your first year, you choose a research mentor. Your decision may be based on a pre-existing research interest, although, in the absence of a defined interest, you and our program faculty can work together to identify a mentor based on your clinical area of interest, a mentor’s interest in you, or a mentor’s resources. The mentor can work in our division or elsewhere within NYU Grossman School of Medicine if you need someone with another area of research expertise.

First-year fellows submit proposals for possible research projects to a research committee, and a dedicated project is finalized by the end of the first year.

Second Year

During your second year, you present an overview of your area of study at a research conference. We encourage you to present your research project for possible submission as an abstract or for a poster or oral presentation to national meetings, such as the American College of Chest Physicians, the American Thoracic Society, or international meetings. Abstract and presentation proposals are extensively reviewed before submission. We also encourage you to develop your presentation into a manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed journal.

Third Year

Your third year is devoted to your research project under your mentor’s direction; you also have less clinical responsibility. Day-to-day activities include basic laboratory work, clinical trial work, or biostatistical analytic work. During this year, you are expected to strive for a publication in a high-quality journal.

Fellows interested in a research career also have the opportunity for grants and advanced research fellowships.

If you are interested in an academic career, arranging one or more additional years of research may be possible. Please discuss this possibility with your research advisor, division chief, and fellowship director as early as possible. You are encouraged to apply for relevant awards and fellowships, including support from the Physician–Scientist Training Program as well as to consider a master of science degree in clinical investigation through NYU Langone’s Clinical and Translation Science Institute. Pathways for an MPH and a master’s in medical education are also available.

Research Laboratories

Our fellowship program takes full advantage of the many research resources at NYU Langone.

Housed at Bellevue, the William N. Rom Environmental Lung Disease Laboratory is a component of NYU Langone’s World Trade Center (WTC) research program and the WTC Environmental Health Center. The laboratory’s mission is to promote lung health through clinical evaluation and treatment of individuals exposed to environmental dusts and epidemiological health tracking, as well as translational research on the mechanisms of WTC- and environmentally related lung diseases.

Additional research laboratories are located at both Tisch Hospital and NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue. For example, studies in lung physiology are performed in the André Cournand Respiratory Physiology Research Laboratory at Bellevue.