Lehigh Valley Health Network’s Medical Toxicology Program provides innovative, fellow-centered training. We received initial accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in June 2017, and our inaugural class began in July 2018. The two-year fellowship provides an outstanding opportunity for clinical and academic training taught by devoted and energetic faculty.
Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) is a premier health care organization comprising a multitude of hospitals and outpatient clinics located throughout the Greater Lehigh Valley area. The toxicology fellowship is primarily based at Lehigh Valley Hospital (LVH)–Cedar Crest. This is a tertiary care, Level I Trauma Center and is home to the region’s only burn center, pediatric emergency department and pediatric intensive care unit. Consultations are also performed at the bedside at LVH–Muhlenberg and via telemedicine across numerous other LVHN hospitals across our region.
Fellowship Training Opportunities
Medical toxicology fellows at LVHN have a variety of opportunities under the guidance of faculty medical toxicologists who are also board-certified in addiction medicine.
These opportunities include:
- Managing acutely ill or injured patients secondary to occupational and environmental exposures, pharmaceutical agents and unintentional and intentional poisoning across all age groups.
- Developing expertise in screening, initiation of medication for addiction treatment and referral to treatment for people with substance use conditions.
- Interacting with students, residents and fellows of a variety of subspecialties, with opportunities to design and deliver bedside and didactic education.
Training Locations
LVH–Cedar Crest provides to fellows the opportunity to gain experience managing patients requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.
Fellows manage poisoned patients at LVH–Muhlenberg. This community hospital is 13 miles from the LVH–Cedar Crest campus. It features an inpatient mental health facility and a unique intensive care unit manned only by emergency medicine residents and intensivists.
Fellows also treat patients in our established toxicology clinic located at LVHN ExpressCARE–Tilghman. This clinic is the only outpatient toxicology referral clinic in northeast Pennsylvania. Fellows are provided the opportunity to evaluate and manage patients referred from industrial, occupational and local medical clinics. The clinic also provides screening and preventive services when appropriate.
To further augment the fellows’ experience with industrial exposures, they also rotate at East Penn Manufacturing in Lyon Station, Pa. East Penn Manufacturing is the largest single-site, lead-acid battery manufacturing facility in the world. We believe this experience provides the fellows with an unparalleled experience in industrial exposures.
Telephone Consultation Training
Finally, it is imperative that toxicology fellows have the opportunity to provide both telephone and telemedicine-based consultation to health care clinicians. Lehigh Valley Health Network has developed a unique toxicology practice model whereby telephone and telemedicine consultation with multiple hospitals throughout the eastern half of Pennsylvania is provided. The fellows provide consultative advice under the guidance of the supervising toxicologist. Fellows also participate in both periodic phone call review, case review and didactic experiences at the Poison Control Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Fellows also spend time with the hyperbaric oxygen experts affiliated with the poison control center in Philadelphia.
Other Opportunities for Fellows
Fellows have protected time to attend both the American College of Medical Toxicology Annual Scientific Meeting and the North American Congress of Clinical Toxicology.
Fellows may elect to obtain additional training or experience including: Advance Hazmat Life Support training, Radiation Emergency Assistance Center training, snake envenomation training and hyperbaric training.
Fellows will engage in community outreach and engagement activities such as educating local high school students interested in health professions and engaging with community members at various outreach events (recovery events, family oriented health and safety events).
Fellows will learn the skills needed to engage with the media in order to provide outreach and education to the public on toxicological issues.
Scholarly Projects
Fellows are given the opportunity to participate in a scholarly project of their choosing. This project may be focused on an area of the fellow’s choosing such as protocol development, quality improvement, research, or development of educational resources.