Perioperative/OR Administration Elective?

[twoliter]

My residency program has started a new rotation this year that wound up being somewhat of a mixture of a few elective ideas I brought to the table (Out-of-OR anesthesia, Transition to Practice / Junior Attending, "Go where needed, when needed") but it's mostly focusing on OR managment, e.g., running the board, assigning the schedule, make sure all rooms are covered, etc. (with a "be available for Level 1's or whatever comes your way" aspect, as well).
Anyway, my question is: does anyone know of any other programs that do that (the OR management part) as a resident elective? I know there are a few Perioperative Administration fellowships out there, but I'm speaking only of resident electives.
I wouldn't mind picking up any ideas on how residents can get the most out of this rotation as possible, but I also was considering writing something up to present.
Any ideas? (Even if your idea is "this sounds like a terrible waste of resources and time.")

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[Arch Guillotti]

I thought that was what you were supposed to do for CA-3 call.

 

[twoliter]

I thought that was what you were supposed to do for CA-3 call.

Well that is part of CA3 call, but, at least for our call, we're only running 2 ORs + OB (which the CA3 "in charge" doesn't really get too involved with; Peds and Cardiac are separate anesthesia home call teams), but this is more of regular work days with ~20 anesthesia locations running, staggering CRNA schedules, OR staff leaving at 3/5/7, etc. I think there's significantly more management involved in a Monday-Friday daytime than there is on weekends, which for us consists of "Hey, CA1A, you go to OR 4 and when you're done with that then get ready to start the next case in descending order of urgency. CA1B, you go to OR 20 and do those cases in descending order."

 

[deleted171991]

Don't worry, those "fellowships" are worthless, cheap labor. Please let me know when you see an employer looking for one of their graduates.

To be honest, I think it's a waste of time, even as a resident elective. Use your residency to become a better clinician, while you still have the safety net of your attendings.

If you're so inclined, OR "management" can be learned easily once you have been working in a place for a while, and know the local dynamic and politics.

 

[pgg]

Most residencies it's just part of being a senior resident; people and resource management is something you're just expected to pick up. Never heard of it as a resident elective, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

I think there's some value to be had in a resident rotation IF there's some actual specific mentorship coordinated with it. Anyone can run a board and plop an add-on into a room, but one thing that was lacking in my residency, that I picked up afterwards, was some of the business-side details of running an OR and an anesthesia department. Maybe add some detailed teaching about units, insurance company reimbursement, what the billing people do with your charts, that sort of thing. If your mentor of the day is just the poor sap who drew the floorwalker short straw that day, it could be a wasted month.

I'm with FFP though, an actual fellowship seems like 11 1/2 months of being exploited as cheap labor. But maybe they're valuable and I just don't know what I don't know.

 

[twoliter]

Most residencies it's just part of being a senior resident; people and resource management is something you're just expected to pick up. Never heard of it as a resident elective, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

I think there's some value to be had in a resident rotation IF there's some actual specific mentorship coordinated with it. Anyone can run a board and plop an add-on into a room, but one thing that was lacking in my residency, that I picked up afterwards, was some of the business-side details of running an OR and an anesthesia department. Maybe add some detailed teaching about units, insurance company reimbursement, what the billing people do with your charts, that sort of thing. If your mentor of the day is just the poor sap who drew the floorwalker short straw that day, it could be a wasted month.

I'm with FFP though, an actual fellowship seems like 11 1/2 months of being exploited as cheap labor. But maybe they're valuable and I just don't know what I don't know.

Thanks for the replies. This is still a work in progress, and like I mentioned initially started off as a collaboration of a few elective ideas, but it's been morphing into more of an OR management month. I completely agree there needs to be some business aspect built into it. And there is one attending who usually "runs the board," so the mentorship aspect is there. There has been some "junior attending" (I've also hear it called a "pretending") so far this month, but I'm not sure if that's because of the rotation or because it's July, but that could be another factor of the rotation. Who knows? This could pan out to be a waste and we'll just scrap it, but we won't know until we try.