Anesthesiology residents now have the option to gain specialized experience with transplants through a dedicated 2-week rotation. Residents in their second and third clinical years who have had cardiovascular, neuro, and pediatric experience are eligible for the rotation.
Residents on this rotation will have preference for lung, liver, and adult heart transplant cases, and the resident will have the first choice when multiple transplants occur.
The impetus for creating the rotation was the recognition that UF Health has become a high-volume, high-quality (outcomes) solid organ transplant center, and that the education of anesthesiology residents could be improved by providing a focused, two-week experience on this service under the direction of qualified anesthesiology faculty and rotation director Michael Arnold, DO, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology. Secondarily, the new rotation aims to improve resource allocation for the nighttime resident team as case volumes increase.
The goal of the new anesthesiology solid organ transplant rotation is to increase anesthesia resident knowledge and proficiency in the preanesthetic evaluation of, preparation for, intraoperative management of, and postoperative evaluation of solid organ transplant patients (liver, lung, liver, kidney, and others) at UF Health. The knowledge and skills that residents gain on this rotation are expected to cross over into the management of many other complex and critically ill patients in the operating rooms and critical care units.
The new rotation comes as UF Health increases its stature as a leading institution for transplants. As of January, UF Health’s one-year postoperative survival rate for lung transplants was 98%, almost 10% higher than the national average, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Similarly, the waitlist mortality rate was 4%, versus the national average of 18%, with an average of 1.2 months of time to transplant.