Didactic Teaching

CA-1 Resident Orientation

Our program has a 2-month introductory orientation for all new CA-1’s starting on their first day.  During this time, new residents are given the opportunity to ease into their residency training and become familiar with the hospital.

Residents are introduced to anesthesia through:

• Intensive series of classroom lectures
• Seminars and conferences
• Anesthesia computer simulation
• OR orientation and weekly rotations through
  various anesthesia services

The goal of the orientation is to rapidly increase the anesthesia knowledge base of the residents. It also allows for the new residents to become familiar with not only the hospital, but all the services that anesthesia provides outside of the OR.

Introductory/CA-1 Didactic Lecture Series

The introductory series of weekly lectures provide CA-1 residents an overview of the field of anesthesiology. The lectures cover material that is required by the American Board of Anesthesiology. July-August, the introductory lectures are 2-3x per week. After Labor Day, these lectures are once/week through the end of June.
2007-2008 LECTURE SERIES CALENDAR text

Tuesday CA-1/Thursday CA-2/3 Conferences

• Clinical Case Conference – Clinically oriented stem questions
• EBM based Journal clubs
• Ethics, Professionalism
• Practice management, Billing
• Law in medicine and Regulatory Matters

These conferences are held once/week for CA-1’s and once/week for CA-2’s & 3’s combined.   The goal is to expose residents at all levels to not only clinical anesthesia scenarios, but also topics outside the OR related to medicine.

Friday CA-2/3 Written Board Review Preparation

Chief resident run conference tailored to board review topics with MCQ and Key Word topics. Faculty members moderate and CA-3 resident prepare the topics.

Rotation Specific Lecture Series

Pediatric and cardiac have an 8-week rotating lecture series that repeats self every other month. Critical Care and OB also provide lecture within their rotations. Rotation specific Journal Club occur in these rotations.

Morbidity & Mortality/Grand Rounds Conference

M&M/Grand Rounds conference is held every Wednesday morning.  The conferences typically entail a complicated or unique case presented by a resident and attending.  Outside guest speaker and CA-3 Year Presentations are also included throughout the year.

Dissection Course

Unique to our program is the annual dissection course that is held every September through mid October.  This course gives residents an overview of body structure and systems.  The Pain Management Director who assigns pain fellows and attendings to teach the course facilitates the course. 

Mock Oral Exams

Mock orals are in the fall and spring for all CA-2’s and CA-3’s. They allow for assessing the residents progress in knowledge base and clinical judgment. It also gives the resident an opportunity to refine their presentation and verbal organization skills. The residents get immediate feedback from faculty regarding their performance.

System Based Role for a Day Presentations

The CA-2 residents research and present their solutions to issues or problems that have or may occur within the health care system. The residents are asked to assume the role of health care professional tasked with addressing the problem. These professionals are rarely anesthesiologists and so this exercise provides the resident and their audience an opportunity to explore the challenges that a non-anesthesiologist may face.