Anesthesiology

Course Description:

Students will experience anesthetic care of cardiothoracic, neurosurgical, OB-Gyn, vascular, orthopedic, general, opthalmologic, ENT and pediatric surgical patients. The student will learn and apply the principles of preoperative evaluation, post anesthetic management, basic airway management, applied pharmacology and intra operative surgical patient management. Procedural skills such as intubation, IV catheter placement, arterial line placement, surgical and labor epidurals, and lumbar puncture will also be performed by the participating students. Students will be responsible for the appropriate set-up and preparation for cases, maintaining appropriate levels of documentation, performing procedures under direct supervision, and attending all didactic studies.

Students will also be assigned to the Interventional Pain Management Department where they will learn best practices in both acute and chronic pain management. This experience will include time spent within the pain clinic and/or working in the outpatient pain management treatment center where they will assist with the provision of invasive pain management therapies.

Clerkship Goals:

The goal of the Anesthesiology clerkship is to learn basic physiologic, pharmacologic and clinical skills pertinent to the practice of Anesthesia.

  1. Provide the student with an understanding of the anesthesiologist's perioperative role, which extends through preoperative evaluation, the administration of anesthesia, and postoperative recuperation.
  2. Provide the student with an awareness of the teamwork necessary to provide high quality medical care in the perioperative setting.
  3. Provide students with an understanding of the basics of resuscitation, including the basics of intravenous access, and safely managing an airway.
  4. Students will learn best practice in the diagnosis and appropriate medical or procedural treatment options for patients experiencing acute or chronic pain.
  5. Provide a basic understanding of common interventional pain management therapies.

Clerkship Objectives:

By the end of the Anesthesiology Clerkship, the student will be able to:

Medical Knowledge

  1. Students will list medical conditions that affect anesthetic risk by organ system and describe the role of medical management of these conditions in changing anesthetic risk.
  2. Students will demonstrate familiarity with anesthetic options (General, Regional, and Monitored Anesthetic Care).
  3. Students will have a working knowledge of the diagnosis and treatment of patients experiencing acute and chronic pain.

Patient Care

  1. Students will demonstrate the ability to maintain a mask airway and start an intravenous line. They will observe advanced airway management techniques.
  2. Students will describe options for acute pain management in the surgical setting.
  3. Students will complete a preoperative history and physical focusing on anesthetic concerns.
  4. Students will demonstrate the ability to appropriately assess a patient’s level of pain.
  5. Students will be able to determine the most appropriate tests and provide interpretations of the test results as they relate to the diagnosis of pain origins.

Communication

  1. Students will present preoperative plans clearly and concisely to their attending physician mentors.
  2. Students will identify critical components of the preoperative and postoperative anesthetic visits.
  3. Students will recognize the impact of patient and family culture on anesthetic decision-making.
  4. Students will recognize the impact of patients’ preconceptions on anesthetic plans or decisions.
  5. Students will recognize the impact of patient social issues on barriers to care

Professionalism

  1. Students will complete their assigned duties in a timely fashion.
  2. Students will demonstrate respectful communication with patients, faculty and staff.

Systems Based Practice

  1. Students will demonstrate an understanding of and comply with HIPAA regulations concerning patient confidentiality.
  2. Students will recognize the contributions of all members of the care team in the perioperative and intraoperative arena, and gain an appreciation for the unique situation of simultaneous co-management of a patient by the surgical and anesthetic teams.

Practice Based Learning and Improvement

  1. Students will demonstrate the ability to interpret the medical literature and apply it to the practice of evidence-based medicine.

Required Experiences

Students will observe or participate, under the supervision of an anesthesiologist or anesthetist, in the following patient care scenarios:

  1. Delivery of a general anesthetic to an adult patient.
  2. Delivery of a general anesthetic to a pediatric patient.
  3. Utilization of regional anesthesia as a primary surgical anesthetic.
  4. Explanation of anesthetic risks to a patient.
  5. Preoperative evaluation of a patient’s suitability for general anesthesia students will perform the following procedures under the supervision of an anesthesiologist or anesthetist:
    • Placement of an intravenous catheter, with a goal of at least five IV placements during the two-week clerkship.
    • Management of a patient airway, including mask ventilation and either LMA or endotracheal tube placement, with a goal of managing at least five airways during the clerkship.