Curriculum

During residency, which includes the clinical base year, trainees have an opportunity to interact with more than 400 specialists and subspecialists who staff the two institutions participating in the program. The program is designed to present the art and science of anesthesiology as a practice of medicine.

Clinical Base Year | Clinical Anesthesia | Advanced Anesthesia Training

Clinical Base Year (CB)

The clinical base (CB) year includes 12 months of the intern year including one month of anesthesiology experience. The clinical base training generally includes the following rotations during the intern year.

Each intern will complete two months of Anesthesiology within the first 12 months. The first surgical Intensive Care rotation will be completed during the PGY-2 year in order to complete the intern year requirements.

On each rotation, the intern is directly involved in patient care in a team concept with other house officers assigned to the service. The resident is fully delegated to the clinical service assigned and has no clinical responsibilities elsewhere. All house staff are supervised and instructed by faculty. Interns are responsible for documenting history, physical exam, management plans and progress of patients.

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Clinical Anesthesiology (CA-I & CA-II)

Daily non-specialty resident assignments are made by review of the operating room schedule by the faculty supervising the operating room that day. Because CRNA's are available, resident assignments can be more selective and cases are chosen to be commensurate with each resident's education level and degree of experience. Residents are challenged with increasingly difficult assignments early in training with the close supervision and support from faculty.

Specialty Resident Assignments

Currently, one month specialty rotations are organized for the disciplines of cardiothoracic, vascular, obstetrical and pediatric anesthesia. Residents also receive specialized training in ambulatory anesthesia, post-anesthesia care and regional anesthesia. The resident will usually have one month of each in the CA-1 and CA-2 years. Supervisory faculty are also assigned to these specialties on a monthly basis to provide consistency.

An active pain service gives excellent training in acute and chronic pain management.

The airway management rotation allows residents to develop skill in the use of specialized techniques for management of the difficult airway.

Critical Care Medicine

In addition to the intensive care experience during the CB year, three additional months are scheduled on critical care medicine later in residency. These areas include:

• Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU)
  This service treats surgical patients from most surgical subspecialties, as well as, those admitted with problems secondary to major trauma. The service is directed by an anesthesiologist with subspecialty credentials in critical care medicine. At the present time, anesthesiology residents spend two months during the CA-I year and one month during the CA-II year on the surgical ICU service.
• Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
  Each resident rotates one month in the PICU during the intern year. The PICU faculty consists of pediatricians who devote their time to the care of the critically ill child.

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Advanced Anesthesia Training (The CA-III Year)

Advanced Clinical Track

The Advanced Clinical Track provides a broad mix of advanced clinical anesthesia assignments. The purpose of these rotations is to allow the CA-III resident to expand his/her experience and confidence in the management of more complex anesthetic problems. The upper level resident manages patients with more complex medical problems for more complicated surgery. In addition, he/she is allowed greater freedom in development and implementation of an anesthetic plan. The resident may also obtain additional experience in subspecialty rotations.

Structure of the track

The CA-III level residents, after consultation with the education director about individual goals, will choose rotations that allow advanced training in areas of special interest and perceived need. Organization of this year may include:

• Advanced OR- The advanced OR rotation allows for short assignments in all specialty areas of anesthesia/surgery. The main focus is the management of patients assessed ASA 3-6 and those having complex surgical procedures when available.
  • Acute pain management/regional anesthesia
  • Cardiothoracic anesthesia
  • Chronic pain management
  • Neuroanesthesia
  • Obstetrical anesthesia
  • Pediatric anesthesia
  • Vascular anesthesia
• An additional six months of advanced assignments.
• Six months of specialty assignments.
• The resident may choose one to three subspecialties to include:
  • Pain Management
  • Cardiothoracic Anesthesia/Vascular Anesthesia
  • Obstetrical Anesthesia
  • Pediatric Anesthesia - if more than two months, must rotate at Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi.
• Clinical Scientist Track
  The Clinical Scientist Track details for the integration of clinical and basic science research into the clinical anesthesia training program are to be worked out for individual interested residents by the program director and the clinical scientist track coordinator. As described in the booklet of information, the research activity may begin anytime throughout the anesthesia training. The only stipulation is that, to complete clinical anesthesia training the resident must have completed 12 months of clinical base training and a minimum of 30 months of clinical anesthesia.