The ACGME and Residency Review Committee for Anesthesiology expects resident involvement in research. This scholarship is necessary because anesthesiologists now and in the future need to be problem solvers for the institution (e.g., need to use QA data to improve clinical care). As a result, we believe experience and understanding of the scientific method, intervention, data collection, and analysis are needed.
Part of the Stanford Anesthesia curriculum is to advance resident knowledge of the basic principles of research, including how research is conducted, evaluated, explained to patients, and applied to patient care. We also expect that that the outcomes of resident investigations will be suitable for presentation at local, regional, or national scientific meetings and that many will result in peer-reviewed abstracts or manuscripts. Next academic year every month there are two residents on research rotations.
Dr. John Brock-Utne, former Program Director, wrote the following summary of the Western Anesthesia Resident Conference (WARC) conference held from April 29 – May 1, 2011 hosted by the Dept of Anesthesiology, University of Arizona. John has been a long standing supporter of resident research.
The venue was the West La Paloma Resort, in Tucson. Travel expenses for Stanford housestaff are funded by the Department of Anesthesia.
WARC is specially designed for anesthesiology residents, medical students and fellows from the 19 anesthesiology residency programs in the Western US. Its objective is to promote and encourage academic pursuits by future leaders in anesthesiology.
This year’s WARC had 338 abstracts and oral presentations. This is just two abstract less than the biggest number ever.
Abstracts accepted for presentations by Stanford Anesthesia residents were:
1. Sarah Bain: Prolonged neuromuscular blockade following cardiac surgery in a patient with ESRD after administ4ratin of Clindamycin.
2. Ioana Brisc: A diagnostic dilemma in PACU.
3. Carlos Brun: Paralyzed by beauty or if chins could kill.
4. Michael Charles: Rocuronium induced tachycardia.
5. Jay Jay Desai: Clinical and Cultural perspective: Establishing an immersive international rotation for anesthesia residents.
6. Jay Jay Desai:Ultrasound Popliteal nerve block in a patient with malignant degeneration of neurofibromatosis.
7. Laura Downey: Anesthetic management for a patient with anterior horn disease undergoing serial electroconvulsive therapy.
8. Erin Hennessey: Improving resident education on the post-operative anesthesia care unit rotation.
9. Christine Jette: The sensitive button: Intraoperative diagnosis of a cardiac paraganglioma.
10. Matthew Jolley: Optimization of electrode configuration for subcutaneous ICD using Finte element modeling.
11. Shaun Kunnavatana: The severely agitated ECT patient- An alternative treatment option
12. Vanessa Moll: Three cases of failure to ventilate with the Drager Apollo Anesthesia Workstation.
14. Andy Neice: A case of serotonin syndrome after methylene blue administration.
15. Andy Neice: Design considerations for video bronchoscopes suitable for the developing world.
16. Cat Reid: No laughing matter: Inadvertent exposure to waste anesthetic gas due to machine failure. Is there a solution?
17. Vikas Shah: Pseudohyperkalema in the setting of chronic lympocytic leukemia.(Vikas was at last minute unable to attend)
18. Becky Wong: Thoracic irrigation can produce transient EKG changes that may not be consistent.
Anesthesia Faulty involved with the above abstracts were in no particular order: Vivek Kulkarni, Brendan Carvalho, Jenna Hansen, Jonay Hill, Pedro Tanaka, Jeremy Collins, Suma Ramzam, Vidya Rao, David Soran, Jay Brodsky, Alex Macario, Gillian Hilton, Richard Jaffe, Jon Bradley, Jennifer Lee and John Brock-Utne.
Matthew Jolley did very well and got a first Prize for his oral presentation.
At the same time as the WARC judges were judging, the CSA judges were hard at work to establish the winner for the best CSA Resident presentation. There were 3 awards and I am very pleased that Matthew Jolley got 2nd place. He will collect his price on Saturday May 14 at 11 am at the Annual meeting of CSA in the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose.
Next year WARC will be hosted by UCLA and will be held in Marina Del Rey. It promises to be a great venue and a lot of fun.
Thank you John!