What are some areas of focus or concern brought up by residents or faculty in recent years?
As with many programs throughout the country, COVID brought along many unique challenges that significantly impacted the structure of our residency program. These difficulties placed notable strain on the Anesthesia department specifically. In the setting of unexpected faculty departures and changes in administration, these issues ultimately impacted certain areas of the program more than others.
At the peak of these events, residents and faculty had expressed concerns related to certain components of the residency experience, such as difficulty ensuring regular didactics due to faculty availability issues, delays in receiving feedback from evaluations, and requesting more methods for evaluating the program itself. Our department has taken all concerns very seriously and—over the last few years—has implemented numerous changes to address them. While the ACGME has been monitoring these concerns and adjusting accreditation status to ensure that changes occur appropriately, the UI Department of Anesthesia has taken this as an opportunity to really buckle down and make the kinds of changes that will take this program from a great one to a truly excellent one.
Understandably, system changes often take years to fully come to fruition and the evaluation process takes time. As a result, the ACGME accreditation status decision is often based on evaluations and concerns that have already been improving prior to the accreditation status change. Our evaluations are already much more positive, and we are confident that this year will lead to even more improvements that the ACGME team will hopefully see fit for reinstatement of full accreditation.
What are some changes that have been made as a result?
Residents from our program have always graduated with excellent clinical skills, but there was a period of time in which residents felt there was not enough dedicated time for didactics, and they believed that academic performance could be improved if the didactic curriculum was expanded. In response to these concerns, the program established Academic Days. Every three weeks, each Clinical Anesthesia (CA) class attends a full day of didactic lectures and simulation sessions—called Academic Day. These requests also led to the implementation of quarterly journal clubs and distribution of resources to faculty anesthesiologists for intraoperative teaching tips and topics to discuss.
Residents and faculty had also expressed concern over the natural delay that was occurring with our evaluation systems. As such, the program began using the myTIPreport system, a phone application-based system that allows faculty anesthesiologists to evaluate residents in real-time with feedback sent immediately to the resident—and vice versa. This has been a huge success, with universally positive reviews amongst faculty and residents.
Residents also mentioned that they would like to be able to give ongoing feedback and have more platforms for submitting this feedback. As such, we implemented monthly “Residnet Town Halls” during which residents can meet with the PD and other administrative faculty as needed to ask questions and discuss any concerns. We have also increased the frequency of anonymous surveys sent out for residents to fill out. The department also made sure to increase resident participation in the Program Evaluation Committee, a committee that works to evaluate didactic curriculum, clinical rotations, and all other aspects of the program. As a result of these many methods for providing input, the administration has had much more information with which to make genuinely meaningful improvements to the program structure and curriculum.
When is the next program evaluation?
We will have another ACGME site visit this upcoming academic year (2024-2025), during which the ACGME representatives will be able to see the improvements we have made and consider the removal of the Probationary Accreditation status. We are immensely proud of our program, completely satisfied with our clinical training, and hopeful that this status change will happen very soon. Our administration, faculty, and residents are all feeling positive about the direction our program is heading, grateful for this opportunity to make such drastic improvements, and excited to see the program flourish even more going forward. We hope you will consider our program for your residency training, and we would be happy to answer any questions you might have!