Resident Education

Didactics

This residency provides one of the most extensive didactic programs found anywhere in the United States with 3-hours of protected didactic time every week. The CME approved didactics program includes in-person and recorded lectures covering fundamental and advanced anesthesia topics. We use a variety of learning formats including distant learning activities, case conferences, morbidity and mortality, quality improvement, visiting professors, journal club, problem-based learning discussions, and board review sessions. We have public mock oral boards, mock oral boards, mock-OSCE, and difficult conversation workshops to mirror each part of the ABA board certification exam.

The majority of our didactic program follows a 2-year cycle of repeating 30-minute lectures covering advanced, clinical topics from the ABA content outline as follows:

In addition to these departmental lectures, clinical subspecialty rotations have their own didactic opportunities. The ICU rotation, for example, has morning rounds followed by a daily staff lecture and self-paced online curriculum. Chronic Pain, CT, and OB rotations also have integrated didactics.

Rotations

Our 48-month continuum in anesthesiology provides Fundamental Clinical Skills (FCS) and Clinical Anesthesia (CA) rotations that are structured to provide the basic and advanced skills required for the practice of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine.

The FCS curriculum is intended to prepare residents for the practice of medicine with experience in medical assessments and management of children, adults, and elderly patients in diverse medical settings – clinic, hospital ward, consult, operating room, critical care unit, and emergency room. The FCS rotations are integrated with CA year one rotations over the first two years of training.

UTMB offers a broad clinical experience including all anesthesiology subspecialties with rotations in pediatric, cardiothoracic, neuro, vascular, OB, and regional anesthesia as well as ultrasound, critical care, pre-operative evaluation, OR management, acute pain, and chronic pain. Our residents rotate through a world-renowned pediatric burn hospital, Shriners Children’s Texas, located in Galveston attached to UTMB Galveston Campus. On this rotation our residents get the unique opportunity to perform multiple pediatric central lines and arterial lines.  Residents also become proficient with pediatric fiberoptic intubations and central line placement, management of pediatric burn patients, volume resuscitation, and pediatric regional anesthesia.

Our residents gain additional experience in neuro and cardiothoracic anesthesia at the Methodist Hospital and UTHealth Science Center in Houston and pediatric anesthesia at the Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christy. These rotations provide valuable insight into the private-practice environment. All training locations have dedicated faculty members providing operating room teaching and supervision to guide development of clinical skills.

Simulation

Residents complete simulation experiences yearly in our interprofessional Health Education Center, equipped with a state-of-the-art Human Patient Simulator, led by one of the pioneers in simulation-based anesthesia training, Dr. Ronald Levy. This is a great learning environment allowing residents to try new skills, practice clinical judgement, learn from mistakes without harm to patients, and take care of rare life-threatening scenarios, like malignant hyperthermia and oxygen supply failures. Visit our Simulation website at https://anesth.utmb.edu/SimulationCenter/Default.asp.