Didactics, Simulations and Practice Exams
Overview of Didactic Program
Our residents are postdoctoral trainees who bring a strong foundation in learning and academic excellence. We view our residents as active participants in their education and believe they play a key role in driving their own learning. At the same time, our faculty is deeply committed to supporting and guiding this process.
To that end, we offer a comprehensive educational program that includes formal lectures, sessions with visiting professors, problem-based learning discussions (PBLDs), small group discussions, journal clubs, workshops, oral board practice sessions, and our dynamic Clinical Case Conference (M & M). We also maintain a robust simulation-based learning curriculum. All rotation-specific goals, objectives, and recommended educational resources are readily available online and accessible to residents at any time.
In recent years, we’ve restructured our didactic curriculum to better support dedicated learning time. Each Wednesday, one anesthesia resident class is relieved from clinical responsibilities to participate in a full day of structured academic activities. These “Academic Days” rotate among the three resident classes, giving each group protected time for learning every third week.
Additionally, our operating rooms have a delayed start each Tuesday morning to allow time for departmental education and interdisciplinary meetings. For anesthesia residents, this time is used for sessions such as Grand Rounds, Morbidity & Mortality (M & M) Conferences, Visiting Professor Lectures, and resident meetings, all held from 7:00–8:00 a.m. Some subspecialty didactics—such as obstetric or pediatric anesthesia—take place from 6:30–7:00 a.m. prior to these main sessions.
Didactics are Specific by Training Level
Didactics during CA1 year are devoted to topics in basic clinical anesthesia (anatomy, physiology, physics, pharmacology, anesthesia basics). In January and February, morning teaching sessions are primarily devoted to Basic Exam and In-Training Exam prep.
Didactics for CA2 and CA3 residents are focused on subspecialties within anesthesia. Topics also include research design/statistics and practice management.
The University of Iowa has also partnered with the Departments of Anesthesiology at the Universities of Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin to share didactics related to practice management. Approximately four times per year, the residents have access to real-time presentations (including Q&A sessions) by local, regional, and national experts.
Workshops, Practice Exams, and Resources
The department regularly sponsors workshops and symposia such as:
Basic TEE Review Course
Obstetric Anesthesia Symposium
Operations Research for OR Management
Regional Anesthesia Study Center of Iowa (RASCI)
Statistical Methods for Anesthesia
Twice a year, residents participate in practice oral exam sessions. The department has six faculty members who are ABA oral board examiners, and they help the faculty and residents prepare to pass the ABA applied examinations (oral boards) and OSCE (Observed Structured Clinical Exam).
Finally, residents have access to many online educational programs that are paid for by the department, including virtually any Anesthesia textbook you can imagine, the ASA Anesthesia Toolbox, TrueLearn SmartBanks, PassMachine Board Prep, PTE Masters Echocardiography, Hall’s Comprehensive Review Questions, and an almost unlimited amount of internal/external lectures and Journal Club articles. Last year, we also created the “Virtual Anesthesia Lounge”, which is a Microsoft Teams page dedicated to collecting educational resources (lectures, study guides, content outlines, etc.) and organizing them in a way that is ideal for the learning anesthesia resident.
Simulations as Practice and Preparation
Within the Department of Anesthesia at UI Health Care, we have an extensive simulation program—with two staff members dedicated solely to organizing and moderating simulation sessions for Anesthesia residents. During the OR orientation in the latter half of intern year, there are multiple simulation sessions aimed at preparing the interns for basic OR anesthesia processes, such as induction and extubation. During the Clinical Anesthesia (CA) years, simulator sessions are scheduled for individual residents throughout the day on rotations that allow for more flexibility (such as Acute Pain, Regional Anesthesia, Academic, or Echo rotations).
We have established a set of simulation scenarios that all residents must complete before they graduate from this residency training program. In addition, we also have a set of scenarios that are tailored towards the novice/orienting trainee.
Simulations are scheduled Monday through Friday. Multiple simulation activities occur each day. Residents who are not on OR rotations are scheduled to participate in simulations frequently during the non-OR rotations.
The ACGME requires participation in at least one simulation per year. Residents at Iowa can expect to participate in approximately 40 simulations throughout the residency (either as teacher, "primary care provider," or as the expert who “shows up to help" when the primary care provider needs assistance.
Education as a Focus
Our residents work hard; they cannot gain real expertise without it. But we never forget that there is more to learning than simply doing a lot of cases. They need to be the right cases, and they need to be supplemented by didactics.
To ensure this, we carefully track and manage resident case mix and case load–not just duty hours. We have protected time for lectures and problem-based learning discussions (every third Wednesday). Simulator time is scheduled, not just handled on an ad hoc basis. Residents also have non-clinical, dedicated Academic rotations (approximately four weeks distributed throughout the three-year residency).