Didactics

The Didactic Program

The strength of our Training Program in Anesthesiology lies in the commitment of our faculty to resident education. This is accomplished by the integration of strong, well organized didactic Lecture Series into the clinical experience. It is a priority of our department that residents be uniformly relieved of their clinical duties to attend departmental lectures. The Didactic Lecture Series is based upon the content outlined by the In-Training Council of the American Board of Anesthesiology and the American Society of Anesthesiologists. In addition, several faculty members within the department are examiners of the American Board of Anesthesiology. These faculty members play an integral role in coordinating the didactic curriculum for our residents.

Monday conferences (for CA-1's) are from 3:30 - 5:00 p.m. and consist of an organized review by the faculty of basic science and clinical topics. Residents are furnished with a personal copy of two major textbooks of anesthesiology (Barash, and Morgan and Mikhail) and are expected to read the assigned chapters prior to the lecture. Weekly Tuesday conferences are also held from 3:30-5:00 p.m. (for CA-2's and CA-3's) and follow the format of the oral board examination. An oral board stem type question and required reading material are handed out one week prior to the conference. This conference teaches the resident to function as a consultant in Anesthesiology by combining factual knowledge with the ability to communicate in a concise, organized, manner. In addition, as a way to orient the new residents and ease their transition from internship, all Monday and Tuesday lecture times for the first month are dedicated to the incoming CA-1's.

Grand Rounds are held for the entire department each Wednesday from 7:15-8:15 a.m. Grand Rounds presentations also include Quality Assurance, Critical Care, Obstetric Anesthesia, Trauma, and a variety of other topics delivered by faculty members within our department and from other departments within the institution. Combined grand rounds with the Departments of Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Emergency Medicine are held 4 to 6 times a year.

All residents are required to take the annual in-training examination sponsored by the ABA-ASA on the second Saturday in July. The fee for this examination is paid for by the department. In addition to this examination, CA-1 residents take the Anesthesia Knowledge Test (AKT) on the first day of residency orientation and again at the end of the first two months of training. The results of these examinations are very helpful in evaluating resident progress and the efficacy of our introductory lecture series.

The most convincing evidence of the department's commitment to education is the excellent results that our residents achieve on the annual in-training examination. Graduates of our training program also have an outstanding pass rate on the oral examination.