Question
What experience do residents get with billing, insurers, the health care policy debate, or trying to make a living in private practice?
Answer
The topics you mention are so broad we cannot do them justice only with the weekday afternoon lecture series, which includes for the senior residents in the Spring two really outstanding talks. One is by Dr. Harrison Chow who is in private practice in San Jose. He speaks on anesthesia group issues such as common conflicts. Another talk more at the macro level is by Dr. David Berger (also in private practice) who discusses the h/o anesthesia within the current health care system and is a practical review of how we got to where we are today.
Stanford anesthesia also offers the career seminar run by Drs. Berhow and Feaster. This seminar has 3 sessions (from how to write a CV to evaluating job prospects) spread around the academic yr. Those efforts have led to publication of a nice handbook — Life After Residency: A Career Planning Guide — available at:
http://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Residency-Career-Planning/dp/038787691X/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244065651&sr=8-11
Also available for those interested residents is the 2010 Conference on Practice Management sponsored by the American Society of Anesthesiologists from January 29-31 at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta, Georgia. One of our CA2s went to this last yr (held in Arizona) as a FAER scholar and came back quite energized.
The Stanford Hosptal Graduate Medical Education office also offers a course: Health Policy, Financy & Economics for Residents that several of our housestaff have signed up for. The group meets monthly.
Finally, wrt policy, check out the article by Atul Gwande in the New Yorker (a bit long but worth it)
The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health care