General Tips for Successful completion of rotation
  1. The residents MUST call the attending physician the night before to discuss the cases for the following day, no exceptions. The residents should be ready to discuss the proposed anesthetic plan for each patient at this time.
  2. The resident should pick a topic (from the key topics, related to regional anesthesia teaching block) for discussion the next day with the attending and communicate this with the attending the night before.
  3. The resident should expect at least 30 min of INTERACTIVE teaching session during a normal working day. The resident should prepare for this teaching by reading relevant text. Suggested reading materials can be accessed from the links on the right hand column.
  4. The residents should be proactive in seeking daily evals of their performance. Paper copies of the daily evaluation forms are available in the anesthesia office. It is the JOINT responsibility of the attending physician and the resident to complete the daily evaluation. Please indicate on the form whether teaching/learning was accomplished or not during the day.
  5. The resident should report to Dr. Novak or Dr. Bhananker if the attendings fail to teach them over sustained period of time (say 3-4 consecutive days). Though in an ideal world, every day should be teaching day, workload for individual attending physician is variable and in practice it may be impossible to spend time teaching on some days. However, the norm should be "teaching days" and the exception should be "no teaching day".
  6. Never leave drugs (even emergency drugs) in the anesthesia office or any place that is not a drug storage area.
  7. All residents must attend the morning conferences on Thursdays. These are held in the board room on the ground floor and begin at 6.15 AM. The monthly CQI meeting is held on the third Thursday of the month in the same board room, but it starts at 6 AM. If one of your cases is selected for discussion at the CQI meeting, please prepare for presenting the case at this meeting.
  8. Residents should visit their preop inpatients whenever possible (rather than looking at ORCA only). This allows time for adequate preoperative patient preparation, builds a rapport with the patient and family, and minimizes delays in schedule.
  9. The residents should be proactive in letting the attending-in-charge (board runner) know the types of cases they need in order to meet the minimum numbers of various types of cases for their log book (especially the senior residents).


ACGME Competencies
The residents must obtain competence in the six areas listed below to the level expected of a new practitioner. These core competencies will be the basis of their performance evaluation at the end of each rotation.


  1. Patient care that is compassionate, appropriate, and effective for the treatment of health problems and the promotion of health;
2. Medical Knowledge about established and evolving biomedical, clinical, and cognate sciences, as well as the application of this knowledge to patient care;
3. Practice-based learning and improvement that involves the investigation and evaluation of care for their patients, the appraisal and assimilation of scientific evidence, and improvements in patient care;
4. Interpersonal and communication skills that result in the effective exchange of information and collaboration with patients, their families, and other health professionals;
5. Professionalism, as manifested through a commitment to carrying out professional responsibilities, adherence to ethical principles, and sensitivity to patients of diverse backgrounds;
6. Systems-based practice, as manifested by actions that demonstrate an awareness of and responsiveness to the larger context and system of health care, as well as the ability to call effectively on other resources in the system to provide optimal health care.