Anesthesiology residents rotate through many unique services within the medical center throughout their intern year at Baylor College of Medicine. All of these rotations encompass adult medicine, except for one, the Transitional Intensive Care Unit at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Many aspects of this rotation make it a valuable learning experience. It is an opportunity to care for pediatric patients, which differs significantly from the typical adult population throughout all other blocks. Common pathologies include chromosomal anomalies and conditions involving pulmonary hypertension, tracheostomies, and organ transplants. Many patients in the TICU have complex medical needs that require a thorough understanding of pediatric physiology. Coordinating their care as frontline providers lays the foundation for providing a safe anesthetic in the future. Plus, this rotation allows anesthesiology interns to work at a world-renowned pediatric center - Texas Children’s Hospital – even before the pediatric anesthesiology rotation in the CA years.
While on service, the anesthesiology resident will split the unit of 14 patients with a pediatric first-year resident. The day will begin at 6 a.m. with sign-out from the overnight resident who provides any events or updates on the patients. Next, the resident will review overnight vital signs, labs, and imaging, see the patients, and check in with nurses and parents/caregivers. Multi-disciplinary bedside rounds start at 8:30 a.m., involving first-year residents, a pediatric critical care fellow, a supervising pediatric critical care attending, a nutritionist, a respiratory therapist, a pharmacist, and critical care nurses. The family-centered approach emphasizes collaborating with parents and caregivers to create a care plan.
After rounds, daily lectures and scheduled simulations provide education regarding pediatric critical care medicine. Finally, the resident will use the rest of their shift to conduct further assessments and evaluations on patients, check in on their families, and work on notes and orders. Overall, this is an incredibly unique rotation within the PGY1 curriculum and, as such, provides many benefits to our education.
