Anesthesiology

Critical Care Medicine/ICU Rotation

The Critical Care/ICU rotation for Anesthesiology Residents occurs in their second and/or third dedicated year and the resident functions as a primary care provider for patients in the Cooper Intensive Care Unit, a closed unit (with all care supervised by an Intensive Care Attending).  The ICU Attendings are members of the Departments of Anesthesiology, Medicine and Trauma Surgery and they are usually assigned for one week at a time.  They directly supervise the Resident’s day-to-day performance.

Additional supervision is provided by the Anesthesiology Director of Intensive Care.  The duties of the Anesthesia Resident on the ICU rotation include:  patient admission ‘work-ups’, case discussions, continuing patient management, routine procedures (e.g. airway management, invasive monitoring, etc.) and common administrative responsibilities (e.g. writing orders, dictating case summaries, taking night call, responding to ‘code calls’, etc.)  The Resident is expected to build upon the knowledge and experience gained during the Clinical Base Year and the subsequent year spent in the operating room.

The patients managed by the Resident include those with primary medical disease, routine post-surgical cases, post-cardiac surgery and post-cardiac arrest.  Special emphasis is given to respiratory failure/ventilator management, prolonged sedation, sepsis/shock, cardiac failure, nutritional support and renal failure.  The Resident reports directly to the ICU Fellow assigned to that service or the On-call ICU Fellow.  The major didactics include the published ICU lecture series, daily rounds and supplemental lectures/discussions.

This rotation will provide the Resident with the ability to integrate peri-operative assessment and management skills into a broader continuum of patient care.  The resident will be able to provide basic intensive care medical management should the need arise after residency is completed.  The experience should allow the Resident to function as part of an ICU Administrative Team and it will prepare the resident for advanced training in the Intensive Care Medicine Track.