See Resident Directory

Residents Will Participate in Jeopardy Tournament

Anesthesia residents Drs. Kevin Schmalenberger, Miriam Anixter and Peter Motelenich will be representing our department at the Resident Jeopardy Tournament hosted by the resident section of the Illinois Society of Anesthesiology. The tournament will be in conjunction with The Midwest Anesthesia Conference (MAC) and PeriAnesthesia Conference (PAC) is being held in Chicago, from Thursday, May 1 through Sunday, May 4 2003.

Resident Awarded AMA Foundation Research Seed Grant

First-year anesthesia resident Tetsuro Sakai, MD, PhD, was awarded a Seed Grant from the American Medical Association Foundation in the amount of $2,500. Dr. Sakai’s Project Title is “Creation of Vascularized Tissue Engineered Cardiac Patch Using Omentum”.

Departmental Seed Grant

Dr. Eric Wilkens received a seed grant from the Department of Anesthesiology for $8000 for his study entitled “Determination of the effect of morphine and Fentanyl with and without ondansetron pretreatment on plasma vasopressin levels”.

Rita Patel is Named ACGMA Award Finalist

Dr. Rita M. Patel was a finalist for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s 2003 Parker J. Palmer “Courage to Teach” Award. This award is given to the top 2% of program directors in the country.

Research Abstracts from the Residency Program

Drs. Rita Patel, Terry Edwards and Helen Westman had abstracts accepted for the 2003 ACGME Mastering The Accreditation Process Workshop in Chicago, Illinois. Presented were Drs. Patel and Edwards’ poster “An Approach to Developing and Incorporating Evaluation Tools in a Residency Program” and Drs. Patel and Westman’s poster “Using Oral Examinations to Teach Faculty how to Evaluate Residents”.

Pediatric Anesthesia Fellowship

Peter J. Davis, MD
Director

Fellows

Jesus Apuya, MD
Greg Cambier, MD
Peter Hatzidiakos, MD
Marco Maurtua, MD
Yuriy Medvid, MD
Felice Vabnick, MD
Margaret Manuel, MD

The University of Pittsburgh Department of Anesthesiology at Children's Hospital offers a CA-4 year of experience in pediatric anesthesia. The Pediatric Anesthesiology Fellowship Program received full accreditation by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education in May 1999. Until then, there had been no ACGME-accredited fellowship programs in pediatric anesthesia in the United States. This additional year of training was designed to give anesthesia residents an opportunity to deepen their skills in pediatric anesthesia. Particular emphasis is given to refinement of the resident's clinical expertise in providing care for neonates, infants, children, and adolescents undergoing a wide variety of surgical, diagnostic, and therapeutic procedures. This includes sharpening technical expertise in pediatric airway management and in pediatric invasive monitoring.

This year's trainees also gained a comprehensive understanding of the developmental, pharmacological, anatomic, physiologic, and psychological changes associated with maturation and disease, including issues of pediatric pain and its management. They gained proficiency in the perioperative care of critically ill infants and children and in pediatric advanced life support, as well as competence to serve as perioperative pediatric anesthesiology consultants following completion of the program.

These goals were met by providing the Fellows with graded clinical experiences; didactic lectures, seminars, and conferences; and clinical electives and research opportunities. Both residents and faculty evaluated the Fellowship Program's goals and objectives with written comments and criticisms. In addition, faculty and residents rated performance bilaterally with written, anonymous evaluation submitted electronically.

In addition to the routine pediatric surgical patients, the pediatric anesthesia Fellow was expected to master the anesthetic care of neonates, patients undergoing repair of congenital heart defects, patients undergoing complicated orthopedic and neurosurgical procedures, and patients with organ failure undergoing transplantation and non-transplantation procedures. Pediatric anesthesia Fellows also developed expertise in the management of both acute and chronic pain in pediatric patients.
The didactic component of the Pediatric Anesthesia Fellowship Program included lectures, seminars, departmental conferences, bedside teaching, and electives. The lecture series consisted of sixty 30- to 40-minute morning conferences, with the primary aim of highlighting pertinent aspects of pediatric anesthesia. The seminars, which allow in-depth exploration of areas of interest, are an hour or longer in duration, blocked into group topics, and cover preassigned reading material. The topics include pharmacology, congenital heart disease, statistics, pulmonology, pediatric pain, pediatric trauma, general pediatrics, developmental pediatrics, and oral board examination review. Approximately three to four additional departmental conferences are held per year in the late afternoon/early evening. The purpose of these latter conferences is to present challenging, interesting clinical cases that have been encountered in recent months.

In addition to operating room learning, fellows also supplement their educational needs by spending time in the ICU or NICU and on the pediatric pain service. If arranged in advance, fellows can also have elective time to perform research.

During the 2001-2002 academic year there were seven fellows in pediatric anesthesia.

Jesus Apuya, MD – Baystate Medical Center, Tufts University, Springfield, MA

Greg Cambier, MD – University of NC, Chapel Hill, NC

Peter Hatzidiakos, MD – University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

Marco Maurtua, MD – Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH

Yuriy Medvid, MD – Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME

Felice Vabnick, MD – University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

Margaret Manuel, MD – University of Massachusetts-Memorial Medical Center

Fellows came to our program from Baystate Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine, Springfield, MA; University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH; Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME; and two from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC.

Upon completion of the program, one fellow did locum tenens work at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and later joined the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Children’s Hospital of Arkansas. One fellow joined the staff of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. One fellow went into private practice in Memphis, Tennessee, one joined Bangor Maine Spectra Medical Group, East Maine Medical (adults & children). One fellow returned to his native country. One continued her pediatric anesthesia fellowship training into the next academic year.

Cardiac Anesthesiology Fellowship

Erin A. Sullivan, M.D.
Director

Clinical Experience

The cardiac anesthesiology fellowship program offers twelve months of advanced training to those at the CA-4 level who wish to pursue post-graduate study in this subspecialty of anesthesiology. Fellows receive intense training in the anesthetic management of adult and pediatric cardiac surgery patients. Fellows develop expertise in caring for adult cardiac surgery patients scheduled for coronary artery bypass surgery (conventional CABG, mid-CABG and OP-CAB), cardiac valve repair and replacement, thoracic aorta repair and reconstruction, adult congenital cardiac surgery, arrhythmia ablation and pulmonary artery thromboendarterectomy. Fellows provide anesthetic care for pediatric patients scheduled for a variety of complex congenital cardiac procedures including closure of atrial and ventricular septal defects, placement of venous and arterial shunts, correction of transposition of the great arteries and the Fontan procedure.

UPMC’s world renown cardiac and lung transplantation program offers cardiac anesthesiology fellows significant experience managing both pre- and post- transplant patients. Fellows provide anesthetic care to patients scheduled for the placement and removal of mechanical ventricular assist devices that are used as a bridge to transplantation, as well as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for patients with severe pulmonary insufficiency.

Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography is an integral part of the cardiac anesthesiology fellowship program. Fellows receive superb training from both the cardiac anesthesiology and cardiology faculty in diagnostic and interpretive techniques as well as the performance of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography. At the conclusion of the training, cardiac anesthesiology fellows are eligible to sit for the National Board of Medical Examiners Intraoperative Transesophageal Echocardiography Certification Examination.

Fellows also have the opportunity to receive advanced training for the management of patients scheduled for non-cardiac intrathoracic surgery. A variety of complex adult thoracic surgery procedures are performed at UPMC including thoracoscopic procedures for pulmonary resection and esophagectomy as well as open thoracotomy for pulmonary resection and pneumonectomy. There is a significant opportunity for the fellow to obtain expertise with the placement and management of thoracic epidural catheters for intraoperative and postoperative pain management.

Other opportunities for cardiac anesthesiology fellows are provided on an elective basis including cardiac perfusion and cardiothoracic surgical intensive care.

Research Experience

Those fellows wishing to pursue academic research are encouraged to spend a minimum of eighteen months in the cardiac anesthesiology fellowship program. Opportunities are provided for those interested fellows to learn and execute the techniques of either basic science or clinical research under the direction of a faculty mentor.

top