Department of Medicine

Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine

U.S. News ranks Shands at UF among nation's best hospitals

The Department of Medicine had the highest ranking in Florida in three specialties: cardiology & heart surgery (tied for 27th nationally); pulmonology (28th nationally); and nephrology (tied for 35th nationally). DOM was also ranked in cancer (35th nationally) and gastroenterology (38th nationally). <Full article>

Repurposed transplant drug gives hope to women with fatal lung disease
A drug typically used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients has been shown to reverse the progress of an often fatal lung disease in women, according to findings published March 16 in the online edition of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The discovery marks the first effective therapy scientists have ever found for the lung disease known as lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM, a rare condition in women often discovered during pregnancy, said Dr. Mark Brantly, a University of Florida <http://www.ufl.edu> professor of medicine and one of the co-authors of the paper.<Read More>

Overview

The Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine is dedicated to patient care, education, and research through excellence in healthcare delivery and innovations in biomedical research. The division is strongly committed to providing superior medical education for Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine fellows, internal medicine residents, and medical students. Several faculty members in the division have received teaching awards from the College of Medicine.

The division will achieve its mission through a commitment to following core objectives:

• The division will provide state of the art management of patients
• The division will train and educate physicians to the highest academic standards in all aspects of the subspecialty
• The division will engage in clinical, basic science, and translational research that improves patient care and increases research funding from national agencies
• The division will recognize the unique medical needs of the people of Florida in our subspecialty and manage those needs

The Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine division offers extensive experience in clinical care and basic science research. Patient care expertise particular to the division includes management of the critical ill patient in the medical intensive care unit at Shands Hospital as well as diagnosis and treatment of alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension, sleep-related disorders, tuberculosis, lung cancer, pleural disease, interstitial lung disease, and other rare pulmonary disorders. The division also offers extensive experience with interventional bronchoscopy for management of airway obstruction and lung transplantation for end-stage lung diseases. Since the initiation of the lung transplantation program in 1994, this center has transplanted over 500 patients and has one of the highest actuarial survivals in the country.

Diagnostic and therapeutic procedures offered by the division at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida and the Gainesville VA Medical Center include bronchoscopy, thoracoscopy, polysomnography, transtracheal oxygen catheter placement, and interventional bronchoscopy including endobronchial laser and electrocautery therapy, bronchial balloon dilatation, and stent placement.

Current areas of active clinical and basic science research include COPD, tuberculosis, alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, lung transplantation, asthma, pulmonary endothelial cell function, and mechanisms of pleural fluid formation.