Education Program
The Education program is diverse, highly structured, and tiered to level of training. It consists of the following: Introductory Lectures to CA-1's, Wednesday Morning Academic Lectures, Friday morning Morbidity and Mortality Conferences, book and keyword exams, mock oral exams, journal clubs, ResEd (education) newsletters, workshops, simulator sessions, specific weekly lectures while on Pain, Neuro and OB rotations, a board review course and a visiting professor lecture series.
The program begins in the CA-1 year with an introductory session for general orientation, followed by a few days of general orientation to hospital systems, infection control, patient flow and PACU issues, and a drug practicum on the patient simulator. Additional time on the simulator is arranged to teach induction and intubation techniques. The baseline AKT exam is given to the CA-1's and repeated at one and six months. During the first two months, July and August, CA-1 Introductory Lectures on general topics of anesthesia are provided.
After the first two months, all levels of trainees attend the Wednesday morning didactic schedule that runs weekly until mid June. The first month, September, is devoted to Practice Management topics, including sleep deprivation, substance abuse, professionalism, library resources, ethics, and malpractice issues. There is a three-year cycle of anesthesia topics presented every October through July. In the current year, pain/regional anesthesia, fluids and electrolytes, metabolic/endocrine, and special topics (including geriatrics, one lung ventilation, and processed EEG monitoring) are being covered. Next year's topics are respiratory, neuromuscular, pharmacology, and obstetric anesthesia. The third year rotations are cardiovascular, neuroanesthesia, physical properties, the autonomic nervous system, and pediatric anesthesia.
At CHW (typically CA-2 and CA-3 residents), teaching occurs three mornings per week prior to the OR start. The topics are specific to pediatric care. While on the pediatric anesthesia rotation, residents are invited to attend a bimonthly multidisciplinary case or topic-based conference with pediatric surgery and pediatric critical care.
Adult Pain topics are covered in weekly conferences on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Critical care and neuroanesthesia have periodic conferences during the week on recurring topics. Additionally, other specialists (typically from surgery subspecialties) are periodically invited to the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Conference when complex case discussions are held.
Conferences on OB anesthesia are held each Tuesday morning at St. Joseph's Hospital. In addition, this OB service has implemented ANGEL software (described in Section 4D), which presents an OB grand rounds case each month that the resident must respond to. When all residents have responded, a faculty member at St. Joseph's Hospital provides feedback.
Friday mornings are reserved for Morbidity and Mortality Conferences. The first Friday of each month, two CA-3's present case studies or reviews of literature on key topics in anesthesia. The last Friday of each month alternates between a pain and a trauma topic. At CHW, the Morbidity and Mortality Conference is held on Monday mornings.
Additional program details, including application information can be found here.
Educational Support
Residents receive $1500 ($500 dept/ $1000 GME office) per year to be used for educational purposes. For residents who have presentations based on their research efforts, the department provide extra funds to cover registration, travel, lodging and meals. Funds are also provided for the purchase of a personal digital assistant which the department encourages for the use of tracking cases and procedures. New additional money has been added to compensate fitness expenses for workout and fitness club fees.
Medical information is readily accessible through department and hospital computers linked to the Medical College Libraries and Internet. The department also has an internal web page accessed via user name and password that provides monthly call schedules, notices and memos, contact information for residents and faculty, lectures, keyword reviews and practice management guidelines.