Abstract Background Clinical and educational experiences during fellowship are often limited. Previously, University of Colorado Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) fellows completed two months of pulmonary vascular disease (PVD) training. Beginning in 2024-2025, this experience was reduced to one month due to time constraints. To maintain a strong PVD education, we enhanced our curriculum by integrating didactic and simulation components. The goal was to maintain foundational medical knowledge of PVD and improve fellow confidence in the diagnosis and management of patients with PVD. Methods The PVD curriculum for PCCM fellows comprised six didactic sessions focused on pulmonary embolism (PE), chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH), acute right ventricular (RV) failure, hemodynamic interpretation and right heart catheterization, pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) therapies, and high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE). To reinforce core concepts, fellows participated in three simulation-based sessions addressing the management of intermediate- to high-risk PE, acute RV failure, and RV failure in critical illness.Evaluation involved multiple methods. Fellows completed surveys before, immediately after, and six months following the curriculum to assess confidence across five key domains using a five-point Likert scale (from Not Confident to Completely Confident) Figure 1). Medical knowledge was evaluated via: 1) performance on the annual standardized in-service examination, with comparisons of pre- and post-curriculum topic-specific scores and national benchmarks, and 2) a set of six case-based multiple-choice questions (MCQs) administered alongside the confidence surveys. Finally, fellows provided qualitative feedback via post-course free-response questions. Results Fellows reported improved confidence across all five surveyed domains immediately following the curriculum, a gain that was durable at 6-month follow-up. Medical knowledge assessment demonstrated two key findings. First, despite reduced clinical time, fellows’ in-service scores in PVD remained above the national average, consistent with pre-curriculum performance. Second, on the six case-based MCQs, the percentage of fellows scoring correctly improved in 4/6 questions.In free-response feedback, most fellows (13/17) reported that simulation enhanced their learning and recommended repeating the PVD curriculum annually or biennially. Discussion A curriculum combining didactics and simulation effectively sustained PCCM fellows’ knowledge and confidence in PVD despite reduced clinical exposure. With simulation enabling hands-on practice in complex scenarios, fellows maintained exam performance, improved on case-based assessments, and reported durable confidence gains. These results suggest that blended curricula can compensate for limited clinical time, supporting broader adoption in fellowship programs facing similar constraints. This abstract is funded by: None
Hountras et al. (Fri,) studied this question.