The ASC industry has been expanding on several fronts: more procedures are moving out of the hospital and into ASCs, patients increasingly desire outpatient treatments, and the demand for surgical services — and therefore anesthesia — continues to rise.
Some leaders have said that workforce training lags behind. The gap surfaces in everything from pain management philosophy to how nurses approach a patient in recovery, ASC leaders said during a panel at Becker’s Spine, Orthopedic and Pain Management-Driven ASC + The Future of Spine Conference in Chicago from June 11-13.
“From the pre-op nurse to the anesthesiologist to the recovery room nurse, they know not to give this person drugs they don’t need,” said Martin Jenter, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Henry Ford Providence Novi (Mich.) Hospital and Michigan Outpatient Surgical Solutions . “We rely on the blocks, we rely on everything else to treat their pain, rather than just these hard narcotics. If you’re not on the surgery center side and you don’t see it, you just might not know it and trust it.”
Anesthesia is a particularly contentious area of training gaps as the industry already faces a shortage of certified registered nurse anesthetists and anesthesiologists.
While ambulatory anesthesia holds no board certification in the same way that cardiac or pediatric anesthesia do, some medical school schools have begun offering residencies and fellowship.
Here are nine medical schools with dedicated residencies and fellowships in ambulatory anesthesia:
1. Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine — offers a formal fellowship in Ambulatory Anesthesiology, alongside other subspecialties including regional and neuroanesthesiology.
2. Ohio State University College of Medicine — offers a fellowship specifically in ambulatory anesthesiology/business and leadership, in addition to ACGME-accredited fellowships in other subspecialties.
3. University of Michigan Medical School — offers a one-year Regional & Ambulatory Anesthesia Fellowship that combines regional anesthesia, ambulatory anesthesia, and general anesthesia practice, with fellows spending time at ambulatory surgery centers.
4. Duke University School of Medicine — offers an ACGME-accredited Regional Anesthesiology & Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship designed specifically to provide advanced training in anesthesia in the ambulatory surgery setting.
Other universities have programs with strong ambulatory components or combined fellowships with an emphasis on ambulatory anesthesia:
5. Wake Forest University School of Medicine — includes ambulatory anesthesia as one of its “Advanced Operative Subspecialties,” with dedicated depth of training, and offers CA-3 electives in ambulatory supervision.
6. Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education (Minnesota & Florida) — Mayo Clinic Florida offers a regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine fellowship, which commonly incorporates ambulatory components.
7. University of Washington School of Medicine — offers regional and acute pain fellowships with rotations across hospital locations and satellite (ambulatory) centers.
8. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine — offers a regional anesthesia and acute pain fellowship, which encompasses ambulatory surgery populations.
9. University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine — offers a regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine fellowship.
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.