worried about program choice

[WLF]

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hi all,
i am concerned about my training program - what if your didactics suck, and faculty are average, but clinical experience (case load and variation) is good at your program - will you still be a knowledgeable anesthesiologist? how do you keep up with the most current and accurate knowledge if your program is not good at disseminating this information?

 

[Danger Man]

Read. Ultimately, you are responsible for determining how good of an anesthesiologist you are going to be.

 

[WLF]

Read. Ultimately, you are responsible for determining how good of an anesthesiologist you are going to be.

sure i understand that, so what is the best way to keep up? journals, textbooks? how do you direct your self-learning with all the masses of information out there?

 

[iron]

Join ASA - you'll get Anesthesiology and the ASA Newsletter
Join IARS - you'll get Anesthesia & Analgesia and the component society newsletters while you're a resident member (Cardiac, peds, ambulatory, etc)
AMA - gets you JAMA and AMNews
NEJM - keeps you informed on more than just anesthesia (tho' I admit to skipping the chemotherapy protocol trials)

All the above have resident/med student rates which are reasonable.

For textbooks, the usual suspects...

Current
Co-existing diseases
the big one of your choice

 

[toofache32]

Is the program accredited? That's the bottom line, as dissappointing as it sounds.

 

[WLF]

Is the program accredited? That's the bottom line, as dissappointing as it sounds.

yes, it is accredited and we do EVERYTHING, as i said the clinical experience you can't beat, but i was worried about didactics and learning for ABA, etc. any advice on texts?

 

[WLF]

Join ASA - you'll get Anesthesiology and the ASA Newsletter
Join IARS - you'll get Anesthesia & Analgesia and the component society newsletters while you're a resident member (Cardiac, peds, ambulatory, etc)
AMA - gets you JAMA and AMNews
NEJM - keeps you informed on more than just anesthesia (tho' I admit to skipping the chemotherapy protocol trials)

All the above have resident/med student rates which are reasonable.

For textbooks, the usual suspects...

Current
Co-existing diseases
the big one of your choice

thank you! i've joined ASA, but I will consider rejoining AMA and getting NEJM and what is IARS?

 

[foxtrot]

hi all,
i am concerned about my training program - what if your didactics suck, and faculty are average, but clinical experience (case load and variation) is good at your program - will you still be a knowledgeable anesthesiologist? how do you keep up with the most current and accurate knowledge if your program is not good at disseminating this information?

Unfortunately, I think this is an all too common problem among academic Anesthesia programs. I am at a program with the exact same type of issues (almost non-existent didactics and little to none intraop teaching). You just have to make the decision to read as much as you can and be prepared for you cases by reading about them ahead of time, which is sometimes hard to do when you know that you may only see your faculty members for a total of 10 minutes during the day (for induction and maybe wakeup) thus the likelihood of you being asked a question is slim (thus sometimes low motivation to study). But I do believe that the extra reading will make a difference when you get out into private practice and when it comes time for the boards. It may sound cliche but I also read the cases that are posted on this forum. It is really interesting to hear the private practice guys give their take on a clinical scenario and then compare it to the way we do it in academics. Take heart, you are not alone.

 

[seattledoc]

Like you alluded to, the problem is not a lack of things to read. I think you just need to pick a couple of textbooks and read them hard. I personally started with morgan/mikail and Barash. It doesn't matter so much what you pick, as long as you find it readable. Also, Coexisting Disease by Stoelting is good to have to look up each chronic problem your patients have.

Find your favorites and read them, then read them again.