Clinical Base Year (CBY) Program

The CBY program is administrated through the Anesthesiology Residency Program Office, providing oversight and continuity for our categorical PGY-1 residents as they rotate with other departments. CBY residents are completely integrated within the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine and have frequent contact with anesthesiology faculty and upper-level residents.  The program is led by Stephen McHugh, MD.

All CBY residents complete the same 12 core rotations, which are explained in detail below. The CBY curriculum has been thoughtfully designed to both satisfy ACGME requirements and to maximize the clinical and professional education of our residents. The CBY program lays a firm foundation for the important process of developing PGY-1 residents into consultant anesthesiologists. Reflections of our residents on completing the CBY curriculum include descriptors such as: “appropriately challenging, but invaluable clinically”; “perfect mixture of challenging and light rotations that are all beneficial for your learning”; and “balanced collection of experiences that prepared me to think like an anesthesiologist.”

Long-standing collaboration between our residency leadership and the hosting rotation departments’ faculty ensures quality training and seamless transitions as CBY residents rotate through the year. One of our former CBY resident’s sentiment nicely captures the great relationship we have with other services: “…I was amazed at how welcoming all of the other specialties were.”  Leveraging the advantages of a multi-site health system, our residents are assigned to the rotations and services with the highest yield for their education, spanning several UPMC hospitals.  Early exposure to patients that span the spectrum of age and acuity across multiple clinical settings strengthens our residents’ ability to care for these same patients later in perioperative and critical care settings as anesthesiology residents.