Required NICU rotation

[BobBarker]

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Almost done with a month rotting away in Neonatal ICU. Anybody else have a program that subjects their residents to such a punishment? I think a rotation at McDonalds would be just as beneficial.

 

[deleted126335]

Almost done with a month rotting away in Neonatal ICU. Anybody else have a program that subjects their residents to such a punishment? I think a rotation at McDonalds would be just as beneficial.

I wish I had the opportunity to do a rotation like that when I was a resident. I only rarely take care of neonates in the OR- usually at night of course.

If you take a position not taking care of kids the month will be a waste of time. If you take a position where you do take care of neonates you will be very glad of the experience.

 

[B-Bone]

I did this as an intern. It's really helpful for OR patients when you have to calculate how many drops of selenium to add to the TPN or schedule them for retinopathy of prematurity exams. You know, basic anesthesia stuff.

 

[deleted126335]

You sound like a CRNA complaining that MDs are overtrained for this work.

Having a NICU rotation gives you another fund of knowledge to build on. It makes you a more knowledgeable physician. A month spent working with pediatric intensivists in a parallel setting would certainly be helpful in taking care of these kids in the OR. I agree that if you never take care of neonates post residency it would not be the most productive use of time during residency.

 

[G0S2]

You sound like a CRNA complaining that MDs are overtrained for this work.

Having a NICU rotation gives you another fund of knowledge to build on. It makes you a more knowledgeable physician. A month spent working with pediatric intensivists in a parallel setting would certainly be helpful in taking care of these kids in the OR. I agree that if you never take care of neonates post residency it would not be the most productive use of time during residency.

All I did was write notes and calculate TPN. Complete waste of time for an anesthesia intern in my experience and our program agreed and removed us from the rotation.

They replaced it by cards and pulmonary bronch. Well worth it.

 

[deleted126335]

There are lousy rotations everywhere in every discipline. I was assuming that the NICU month is in a solid academic program with pediatric intensivists and fellows and peds senior residents and that teaching anesthesia residents rotating throught was a priority of the experience, not using them for scut work. The former I maintain would be a very useful rotation. The latter a waste of time.

 

[IlDestriero]

I did this as an intern. It's really helpful for OR patients when you have to calculate how many drops of selenium to add to the TPN or schedule them for retinopathy of prematurity exams. You know, basic anesthesia stuff.

👍

 

[michigangirl]

There are lousy rotations everywhere in every discipline. I was assuming that the NICU month is in a solid academic program with pediatric intensivists and fellows and peds senior residents and that teaching anesthesia residents rotating throught was a priority of the experience, not using them for scut work. The former I maintain would be a very useful rotation. The latter a waste of time.

Just a small matter of semantics as the term "pediatric intensivist" has come up a couple times--

NICU= neonatology== newly born who are critically ill==attendings are neonatologists.

PICU= pediatric critical care (all critically ill children who are not newly born ages 0-18)== attendings are pediatric intensivists

I've maintained that neonatal ICU rotations for the anesthesia resident are not necessary and in fact are superfluous-- it is a completely different story for the peds anesthesia fellow who needs to learn the nitty gritty details of neonatal fluids, peri-op care, etc.


IMHO the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) rotation is much more valuable to the anesthesia resident who will more than likely be taking care of children during some point in their career, and need exposure to a wide range of ages and physiology. This of course is predicated on what doze said i.e. learning from pediatric intensivists, peds residents-- although in our PICU the anesthesia residents are in the same role as the pediatric residents, which means there is scut but there is huge amounts of learning as well.

 

[B-Bone]

Just a small matter of semantics as the term "pediatric intensivist" has come up a couple times--

NICU= neonatology== newly born who are critically ill==attendings are neonatologists.

PICU= pediatric critical care (all critically ill children who are not newly born ages 0-18)== attendings are pediatric intensivists

I've maintained that neonatal ICU rotations for the anesthesia resident are not necessary and in fact are superfluous-- it is a completely different story for the peds anesthesia fellow who needs to learn the nitty gritty details of neonatal fluids, peri-op care, etc.


IMHO the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) rotation is much more valuable to the anesthesia resident who will more than likely be taking care of children during some point in their career, and need exposure to a wide range of ages and physiology. This of course is predicated on what doze said i.e. learning from pediatric intensivists, peds residents-- although in our PICU the anesthesia residents are in the same role as the pediatric residents, which means there is scut but there is huge amounts of learning as well.

agree 100% with this. also did a PICU month as an intern, and learned a ton about sick kids/sepsis/pressor mgmt/procedures. PICU was much more useful and generally applicable to anesthesia. Also, one of my long stems on the oral boards was management of a septic, hemodynamically unstable kid in the PICU, so the ABA apparently thinks this is relevant as well.