We're Focused on Excellence in Education
Our Educational Philosophy is built upon the following foundation:
Airway First and Foremost
Airway First is the unquestionable stance of our profession. How do we approach this at Wake? We make the Difficult Airway fun, something to be sought out because you will enjoy being able to intubate the hardest possible airways awake, quickly and smoothly. Our last 150 graduates can make this claim and can perform awake intubations, room to tube, in less than 10 minutes.
The Difficult Airway Algorithm long ago placed the Awake versus Induced decision at the very top of the decision tree, we simply align our training approach to make each branch of the algorithm comfortable. All of last year's graduates exceeded 200 ancillary airways, 50 fiberoptic intubations, 25 awake intubations, 20 lightwand intubations, and dozens of videoscopes, glidescopes, LMAs, and intubating LMAs. Practice makes perfect and you will have several rotations here that use ancillary tools exclusively.
Emphasis on Primary Subspecialties
What are the Primary Subs? Well, never defined as such, but obviously they are Peds, OB and Regional since you will rarely work a call shift in your career without tapping into at least one, if not all three, of these subspecialties. Extreme mastery of these is simply mandatory. We maintain a pediatric bias throughout our four year continuum and provide our heaviest clinical experience in OB and Regional. All of our residents do hundreds of labor epidurals and peripheral nerve blocks.
Depth in Advanced OR Subspecialties
What are Advanced Operative Subspecialties? As one might guess, they are Cardiothoracic, Neuro, Major Vascular, and Ambulatory Anesthesia. We pride ourselves on the depth we attain in training these subspecialties that contain so many unique situations, so heavily represented on our certification examinations.
Breadth across the Perioperative Spectrum
Perioperative rotations here include the PACU, the Pre-anesthetic Assessment Clinic, Chronic Pain Management, and work in several different ICUs. Consultants in our field will need to remain adept at all aspects of perioperative medicine, with an even greater emphasis anticipated for the future. Roughly half of the oral board is guaranteed discussion in this realm. We have two Mock Orals each year and a well developed Simulation Lab to help drill for the upcoming OSCE portion of certification.
This construct is meant to build a consultant that can work in any system or situation, and to further function in a solo practice situation if necessary. This is not a common scenario, but with an unapologetic nod towards military training methods, one never knows what the future holds. Skills training needs to be specifically developed in a stepwise fashion: mannequin work, elective opportunities, cadaveric instruction, and most of all…heavy repetition. This has always been the tried and true method for procedural mastery. To this end, each of our graduates performs in excess of 200 ancillary airways, labor epidurals and peripheral nerve blocks. more
Upcoming Educational Events
- The 21st Annual Advances in physiology & Pharmacology in Anesthesia and Critical Care - The Westin Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, October 17-20, 2015 > more info
- MOCA Simulation Course Dates > more inf
- December 5, 2014
- February 6
- March 6
- April 10
- May 1
- June 5
- August 7
- September 11
- October 2
- November 6
- December 4