Anesthesiology Resident Information

Stony Brook University Department of Anesthesiology

Residency Program

Introduction

Chairman

Director

Associate Director

Departmental Honors

CA-1 Resident Cohort for 2009

Introduction to the Residency Program

Anesthesiology is a major specialty in the practice of medicine. The country’s need for well-trained anesthesiologists has increased greatly in the past few years, and the opportunities in community hospitals as well as in academia are legion. The scope of the specialty has dramatically expanded over the years. Anesthesia is one of the great medical discoveries of humanity, allowing the advancement of surgery. The anesthesiologist, who initially provided pain relief and amnesia to the patient, has become the clinical pharmacologist and physiologist in the operating room. The scope of the anesthesiologist has broadened to include obstetrical analgesia, acute and chronic pain therapy, intensive care, office-based anesthesia and sedation and monitoring of patients undergoing GI, radiologic and ECT procedures.

The mission of the Residency Program at Stony Brook University is to educate and facilitate the achievement of excellence in anesthesia care and thereby create physicians, who in the course of their careers will play a role in improving the quality of health care in our nation. The Department of Anesthesiology provides a faculty of national and international renown who excel in Patient Care, Teaching and Research and from whom the residents receive their educational experience. As a demonstration of our commitment to the residency program, the department has created several new and exciting initiatives. These include an educational intranet, a unique didactic program, a dedicated faculty mentor for each resident, a generous educational allowance and a compensation package that is among the best in the country. The end product of this anesthesia residency education is a superbly trained consultant in anesthesiology, able to provide the highest quality of care to patients even when they present the most challenging clinical conditions.

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Welcome from the Chairman of Anesthesiology

Peter S.A. Glass, M.B., Ch.B., D.A. (S.A.), FFA (S.A.)
Professor and Chairman

This is an exciting time for anesthesia as well as the Department of Anesthesiology at Stony Brook University. Anesthesia as a specialty continues to expand beyond the conﬁnes of the operating room. Numerous advances in anesthesia and analgesia continue to occur that enhance the care of patients. Stony Brook Medical Center has opened ten new state-of-the-art operating rooms as part of its Major Modernization Project.

A structured and extensive educational program has been developed. This includes lectures, regular teaching within our simulator, problem-based learning, and Board review and lecture notes along with regularly administered oral and written tests to ensure you are keeping pace with your peers and are on target for passing your boards. Our Program Director, Dr Chris Gallagher, was awarded the IARS Teaching award for 2009. Our simulator is 1 of a handful that has been recognized by the ASA and has been approved for the simulation section required for maintenance of certification in anesthesia (MOCA). The department is also committed to remaining in the forefront of information technology. The operating room and the department are fully covered wireless zones. This enables them to have instant access to the internet, email, Resident Portal and departmental intranet with extensive educational material and links to anesthesia related web sites, original articles and book chapters. A generous book allowance and funds to attend a national meeting is provided as well as subscriptions to the premier anesthesia journals. Residents are exposed to cutting-edge research with clinical trials occurring with the newest compounds and technology in anesthesia.

Exciting basic science research covers several areas of investigation including mechanisms of anesthesia, pain, brain and cardiovascular function utilizing the most modern tools of genomics, proteomics and functional MRI. One of our faculty was 1 of the very few investigators nationwide who was awarded a stimulus grant. The department ranks regularly in the top 25 NIH funded anesthesia departments. As of the July 2009 class residents are required to complete a research project during their 4 years of residency. This is a structured program of lectures and assignment to a mentor who will oversee your project. To date our resident research efforts have been very successful. In 2006 Long Nguyen won second prize in the ASA Resident Research Essay Competition and in 2007 Robert Trainer was named on two patent applications for his work on the local anesthetic activity of dexmedetomidine. Residents are strongly encouraged to submit abstracts to major meetings. In 2008, 6 abstracts were presented by residents at the ASA and this increased to 9 for 2009.

Probably the most important teaching tool is the extensive experience obtained by caring for patients with tremendously varied pathologies that occur in the large patient population that present for surgery under the direct guidance of our highly skilled faculty. We also strongly believe in community service and we provide several opportunities for both residents and faculty to be part of mission trips to third world countries. Stony Brook University Hospital is the ONLY tertiary referral center for Suffolk County serving a population exceeding 1.5 million. All surgical specialties are present within the hospital. Residents will rotate through all of the anesthetic subspecialties where they will be taught by faculty with speciﬁc expertise in this area and who have national and international recognition for their contributions to the ﬁeld of anesthesia. Further experience is also provided by rotations at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in nearby Northport.

Opportunities for a stimulating residency, combined with the local environs of the medical center offer an excellent quality of life. Stony Brook is ideally situated midway between the excitement of New York City and the world famous beaches of the Hamptons. The University offers a tremendous diversity of outdoor and cultural activities of its own; however, you can be in Manhattan or on the beach in about an hour. When combined with the village atmosphere and safety of Stony Brook and with the best school districts in the nation, it is not surprising that this is one of the most sought after areas in the Northeast.

If you are interested in a ﬁrst class Residency Training Program and are committed to succeeding in a career in anesthesia, we would be delighted to welcome you to the Department of Anesthesiology at Stony Brook University.

Stony Brook University Hospital is the ONLY tertiary referral center for Suffolk County serving a population exceeding 1.5 million. All surgical specialties are present within the hospital. Residents will rotate through all of the anesthetic subspecialties where they will be taught by faculty with speciﬁc expertise in this area and who have national and international recognition for their contributions to the ﬁeld of anesthesia. Further experience is also provided by rotations at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in nearby Northport. Research opportunities are available to residents in the latter part of their training. The department is extremely active in clinical research trials testing the newest drugs and technology available to anesthesia. Similarly, the department has several investigators involved in basic research varying from mechanisms of anesthesia to functional brain imaging. The department ranks regularly in the top twenty-five NIH funded anesthesia departments.

Opportunities for a stimulating residency, combined with the local environments of the medical center offer an excellent quality of life. Stony Brook is ideally situated midway between the excitement of New York City and the world famous beaches of the Hamptons. The University offers a tremendous diversity of outdoor and cultural activities of its own; however, you can be in Manhattan or on the beach in about an hour. When combined with the village atmosphere and safety of Stony Brook and with the best school districts in the nation, it is not surprising that this is one of the most sought after areas in the Northeast.

If you are interested in a ﬁrst class Residency Training Program and are committed to succeeding in a career in anesthesia, we would be delighted to welcome you to the Department of Anesthesiology at Stony Brook University.

Welcome from the Director of the Residency Program

Christopher J Gallagher, M.D.
Associate Professor
Residency Program Director

Welcome and thanks for your interest in the Department of Anesthesiology at Stony Brook University. We are a dynamic department on the move and we are moving toward being the best! Under the leadership of our Chairman, Dr. Peter Glass, and our Residency Program Director (that’s me!), we have created an anesthesia residency with emphasis on the resident. Over the past few years, our faculty has made a commitment to make resident education our ﬁrst and foremost priority. We have been able to accomplish this because the entire faculty contributes to make this program a success. As our faculty continues to grow, the inﬂux of new ideas from programs such as Duke, Columbia, Mt. Sinai, Washington University, University of Tampa, Rochester, University of California, the University of Maryland and the State University of New York at Syracuse helped to expand our teaching capabilities.

Within the past several years, we have completely reorganized our teaching program, creating a graduated curriculum centered on three-week blocks in which CA-1, CA-2 and CA-3 residents receive instruction on a given topic, speciﬁc to their level of training. A signiﬁcant part of our teaching has also shifted to the clinical divisions, with each group creating goals and objectives for their particular rotation. And if that’s not enough, we completely and thoroughly reviewed our CA-1 orientation program and changed it dramatically three years ago with very positive results! More than 70% of our CA-1’s scored greater than 70% on the AKT exam this past year. However, we are not content to rest on our laurels, but are constantly reevaluating the educational needs of our residents. We are not afraid to make changes and always include the residents in major decisions regarding the educational program.

Three years ago, our Medical School opened a brand new Clinical Skills Center equipped with the most sophisticated patient simulators. Our residents benefit from an expanded education program in the simulator. We have introduced an innovative rotation last year in Office-Based Anesthesia, allowing our senior residents to spend one day per week in a private practice plastic surgery office during their Ambulatory rotation. This experience is quite different from anything they see in the OR, and exposes them to a new and rapidly growing niche for anesthesiologists.

Our goal is to produce residents that excel both clinically and academically. There is no shortage of challenging cases at our institution, so it is practically impossible to graduate from our residency without demonstrating clinical expertise in all areas of anesthesia management. All of our residents receive a $1,500 allowance to attend a conference and/or purchase educational materials. The department purchases the following textbooks for each resident which is separate from the $1500.00 allowance: Miller’s Anesthesia E-dition, Basics of Anesthesia: with Evolve Website, Stoelting’s Anesthesia and Co-Existing Disease: Expert Consult, Anesthesia Unplugged, Board Stiff TEE – Transesophageal Echocardiography, Practical Approach to Cardiac Anesthesia, Smith’s Anesthesia for Infants and Children, The ICU Book, Obstetric Anesthesia Handbook, Rapid Interpretation of EKG’s, Clinician’s Guide to Surgical Care, Maxwell Quick Medicine Reference and Pocket Medicine – Massachusetts General Handbook of Internal Medicine.

To make sure that you receive the proper education, we have instituted a double process of monthly evaluations. Our Clinical Competency Committee meets monthly to review the progress of each resident. In addition, the faculty complete monthly evaluations. Residents also complete monthly faculty and rotation evaluations, which are completely anonymous. All residents meet formally with the Program Director two times a year to review their progress and to address any concerns. However, my door is always open for informal chats and residents frequently drop in.

If you ﬁnd all this exciting and want to be part of an innovative residency program that truly puts resident education ﬁrst, come on over and check us out!

Welcome from the Associate Director of the Residency Program

Joy Schabel, M.D.
Associate Professor
Associate Residency Program Director

As Associate Residency Program Director, I work with and for the residents. My goal is to provide residents with the best training so they become the best anesthesiologists. The residents’ success is my success; that guides my every decision as the Associate Residency Program Director.

Our didactic program is ambitious, pushing residents to mastery of the profession. We include lectures, case discussions, keyword review, problem-based learning discussions, written board reviews, journal clubs, mock oral exams and simulator sessions. All these activities prepare the resident to:

Pass the written boards.
Pass the oral boards.
Provide anesthesia to any patient under any conditions.

We use the six core clinical competencies as we teach, and breathe relevance into each of them:

Medical knowledge.
Patient care.
Systems-based practice.
Professionalism.
Interpersonal and communication skills.
Practice-based learning and improvement.

We teach all this in an active way, with lots of feedback and Socratic give-and-take, so the resident takes home a good lesson and that lesson sticks.

We evaluate you every day with a daily debriefing form, so you learn the take-home lessons right away. We work on this form with you; we are a team when it comes to learning.

For our incoming residents, we offer an introductory six-week orientation program with simulator training, daily lectures and selected faculty preceptors for clinical training. Our comprehensive three-year curriculum that begins after the introductory program expands the resident’s foundation of both fundamental and subspecialty knowledge. Because resident education is our top priority, residents are not scheduled to clinical duties during curricular learning activities.

Education first.
Education first.
Education first, that is our mantra.

In summary, we teach a lot, we teach in a lot of different ways, and we provide a high volume and variety cases to learn from. We have what it takes to make you a great anesthesiologist. When you leave Stony Brook, you will make us proud, because your success is our success.
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