Cardiac Anesthesiology Fellowship


Description
The focus of the Cardiac Anesthesiology Fellowship is to provide an environment in which to acquire knowledge and develop the technical skills necessary to provide quality clinical care and research in cardiac anesthesia. The Fellowship is set up as a one to two years specialized and personalized training program designed to allow the individual maximal exposure to the clinical and research opportunities. Though clinical experience represents the foundation of Fellowship training, the program is individualized to meet the goals of the successful applicant. Candidates may chose a second year to complete research projects or pursue a specific clinical interest eg. TEE. Training occurs at The Toronto General Hospital (TGH) which performs 2500 cardiac surgical procedures annually. Sentinel North American studies for the Fast Track Cardiac Surgery Technique was performed at TGH and form the basis of our current practice. Training is directly supervised by our staff anesthesiologists.

At the completion of the Fellowship, successful fellows will have achieved the following goals:
(1)safe and skillful management of complicated cardiac surgical patients
(2)basic proficiency in intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography
(3)management of postoperative cardiac surgical patients
(4)completion of a research project (abstract or manuscript) and presentation at a national or international meetings

The Toronto General Hospital Cardiac and Cardiac Anesthesia and ICU Program
The University Health Network (UHN) comprises three teaching hospitals: the Toronto General Hospital (TGH), Toronto Western Hospital (TWH) and Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH). The Cardiac Surgery Division is sited at the Toronto General Hospital, a 510-bed tertiary referral hospital, in which more than 2500 cardiac surgical procedures are performed annually on adult patients. TGH is the busiest cardiac surgery center in Canada and one of the largest in North America. Cardiac surgeries at TGH are distributed among coronary revascularization (60%), valve procedures (35%) and adult congenital heart procedures (5%). With Dr. Tirone David as Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery, our clinical caseload includes all adult cardiac surgical procedures: CABG, valve, congenital heart, aortic reconstruction, Ross procedures, Maze procedures, ventricular re-modeling and mapping surgery, left ventricular reduction surgery, minimally invasive coronary bypass operation and heart transplantation. As one would expect from a tertiary academic medical center, these procedures encompass the entire spectrum of available treatment modalities including both standard and experimental therapeutic options. A new mechanical cardiac assist devices program started in 2001 will allow fellows to gain experience with the anesthesia for placement and clinical use of these ventricular support devices. An integrated heart transplantation program supported by the Division of Cardiology exposes fellows to the perioperative management of these patients. The Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory will enable the fellow to gain expertise in the care of patients undergoing invasive cardiologic and electrophysiologic therapies. The fellow will be an integral member of the TGH cardiac anesthesiology team involved in the varied aspects of adult clinical care.