Cleveland Clinic Cardiac Anesthesia Fellows will successfully complete a scholarly activity during their Fellowship year in order to fulfill requirements for certification by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The objectives of this scholarly activity are:
- To achieve a level of expertise in a specific area through a thorough review of the literature
- To improve understanding of the methods of investigation
- To learn critical review of the literature
- To understand the process of investigation
- To prepare an abstract/case report for publication and/or presentation
Potential scholarly activities include research projects, presentation of a case report/case series, or publication of an echo rounds. Alternatively, fellows can participate in a well researched quality improvement project. Each Fellow is assigned a Staff Anesthesiologist mentor for the purpose of guiding and directing the development of this project. Fellows may allocate up to four weeks of research time to complete this project. All Fellows are encouraged to submit this project for publication and/or present at a local or national scientific meeting. In addition, all Fellows will present their work at the Cardiothoracic Anesthesia Research Day, which is routinely scheduled in June at the end of the Fellowship year.
Our Cardiac Anesthesia Fellows have access to the Cardiothoracic Anesthesia Registry, which collects extensive intraoperative and postoperative data from thousands of patients who have undergone cardiothoracic surgery at Cleveland Clinic. Recent projects that have been presented at the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists national annual meeting have included, “Deeper Levels of Anesthesia are Associated with Worse Neurological Outcomes in Cardiac Surgical Patients” and “Do Insulin-Sensitizing Oral Hypoglycemics Influence Postoperative Outcomes In Type 2 Diabetic Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery?”
Some scholars choose to write a Case Report, Case Series or Echo Rounds. A recent Fellow authored an echo rounds that was published in Anesthesia and Analgesia entitled, “Aortic Valve Homograft: A Rare Cause of Left Ventricular Outflow Tract Obstruction.” Other Fellows have presented medically challenging cases at the 2009 American Society of Anesthesiologists Scientific Meeting, including: “Echocardiographic Guidance for Fluid Resuscitation in Noncardiogenic Pulmonary Edema” and “Postoperative Myocardial Infarction in a Patient with Coronary Stents.”