Impact of Ambulatory Blocks on Pulmonary Critical Care Fellow Outpatient Training Experience.

Background: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) fellows spend a minimum of 7% of their time in the outpatient setting over 3 years of training. In a multi-institutional survey, only 47% of PCCM fellows rated their ambulatory training as adequate. Internal medicine residencies previously adopted the "x + y" scheduling model, which separates inpatient ("x") and outpatient ("y") rotations to provide focused ambulatory experiences, to address similar concerns.