Chairman's Report

Thanks for your interest in the Department of Anesthesiology at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine at Scott & White. It is an exciting time to be affiliated with our organization. Much of the excitement we feel is related to the remarkable growth that is occurring within the Scott & White Health System and the College of Medicine.

The residency program received approval in April of 2006 from the ACGME to expand the program to a total of 32 residents for the four year integrated program. While we now will enter the match looking for eight outstanding candidates, we have already added extraordinary residents at the CA-1 and CA-2 levels. This growth in residency size will ensure enhanced experiences for our resident complement.

Scott & White Hospital is undergoing dramatic and exciting growth in facilities. In January of 2007, we opened a new 500,000 square foot facility in Temple. This beautiful new building replaced half of our current hospital beds with state of the art private rooms, as well as add an additional 100 inpatient beds to our current capacity of approximately 500 inpatient beds. With the opening of this new building, we will also see the relocation and dramatic expansion of our critical care units with 70 adult beds, in addition to the new Pediatric and neonatal ICUs. A new larger labor/delivery/recovery unit and a new 40,000 square foot Emergency Department will also be opened. Other building projects within the organization include: a 75,000 square foot Center for Diagnostic Medicine that opened in April of 2006 on the Temple campus, a new hospital and medical office building (University Medical Center) in Round Rock, TX (which is 30 miles north of Austin, TX and 30 miles south of the main hospital complex in Temple, TX). In addition, a long term acute care hospital opened in May 2007 on our West campus. As you can see, we are experiencing unprecedented growth in facilities that will have dramatic positive effects on our ability to deliver care and provide a first-rate educational environment.

Faculty

Currently, we have 31 faculty members at Scott & White, along with four faculty members at the Central Texas Healthcare Veterans System. The Scott & White faculty is split among our hospital, our ambulatory surgery centers in Temple and College Station and our Pain Clinics. The faculty is educationally diverse with experience and fellowship training in the subspecialties of pediatric anesthesiology, cardiovascular anesthesiology, pain medicine, obstetric anesthesiology, and intensive care. Members of the faculty are involved in multiple institutional roles, with the medical directors of perioperative services, the surgical ICU and Institutional Quality all being anesthesiologists.

Residency

Russell McAllister, M.D. continues to excel as the outstanding Residency Director of our program. Our residency has full accreditation. Residency expansion was approved by the ACGME in April of 2006. Beginning in 2007, we are excited about matching for a complement of eight residents. For many years we have seen the advantages of an integrated intern year and will enjoy working with a total residency group of 32 residents. Our graduates' performance on the in-training exam continues to be among the strongest in the country. As a result, the 100 percent board certification rate of our graduates over the past five years should not be surprising.

Clinical Activity

Growth in surgical volume at Scott & White continues to be phenomenally steady. In 2003, the Ambulatory Services Pavilion was opened. This facility includes a state of the art ambulatory surgery center. In 2006, we opened the eighth operating room in this new facility on a daily basis. Combined with our many operating rooms and remote locations that we staff on a daily basis in the main hospital, it is not surprising that we were able to perform over 26,500 anesthetics this year at the main Temple facility alone.

Our Pain Clinic, under the medical direction of Andy McDavid, M.D., provides over 50 patients per day with the much needed, full spectrum interventions. This clinic is located in our Ambulatory Services Pavilion.

Our intensive care experience is found throughout the curriculum. It is highlighted by the experience in the surgical ICU, led by David Ciceri, M.D., a departmental faculty member who also serves as the medical director of the Intensive Care Unit.

Academic Activity

Advancing the academic mission continues to be a high priority for the Department. Under the leadership of Jolene Bean-Lijewski, M.D., Ph.D., Vice Chairman for Academic Affairs, we continue to expand both the scope and volume of contributions to this mission. Departmental visibility in the literature, at national meeting venues, and in resident education continues to expand. Clinic-based research activities as well as basic science contributions are ongoing. Both resident and medical student contributions continue to be possible within the departmental research efforts. Simulation-based research and education activities are also growing areas of emphasis in the department. We are fortunate to be able to use a state of the art simulation center, located in the Temple College Campus, as part of an institutional resource for these activities. In addition, the department has invested in a lab that contains human patient simulators that is located within our department at Scott & White.

In closing, I want to thank you for your interest in our department and hope you will consider our program.

Tim Bittenbinder M.D.
Chairman,
Department of Anesthesiology
Texas A&M Health Science Center
Scott & White

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