Welcome to the anesthesiology residency program at Tufts Medical Center and Tufts Medical Center! We are excited you’ve chosen anesthesiology as your specialty. During your training you will develop the knowledge and skills to become an outstanding anesthesiologist and consultant. Our anesthesiology residency training program offers a comprehensive educational experience with broad clinical exposure across all subspecialties, an extensive didactic program, a robust resident research program, and an excellent track record of graduate success.
The program is ACGME accredited and offers eight advanced positions (CA-1 to CA-3) and two categorical positions with a surgical preliminary year at Tufts Medical Center. The surgical case mix is skewed towards the complex and high risk resulting in challenging clinical experiences for residents throughout their training.
Despite the complexity we remain a medium-sized program. As a result, the department maintains an intimacy and familiarity amongst staff and residents that fosters an ideal environment for learning and mentorship. Over the years, residents and staff have chosen Tufts because of this unique mix of high caliber training in a comfortable, supportive environment.
Tufts Medical Center also differs from many academic centers in that it provides adult, pediatric, and obstetric care all under one roof. This offers our residents the considerable advantage of continuous and intermittent exposure to these areas throughout their training.
We are proud of the diversity we have in our department. Our department is comprised of different races, ethnicities, languages spoken, nationalities, sex, gender identities, sexual orientation, religions, disabilities, and ages.
The Clinical Competence Committee reviews the progress of each resident based on attainment of ACGME milestones. These are evaluated by faculty and program leadership on a regular basis using a confidential evaluation system. Residents also evaluate the faculty and the program on a regular basis. Each resident is paired with a faculty advisor to guide them through their training.
Residents are required to prepare a research project. Editorial assistance and academic mentoring is provided by faculty mentors to ensure success. The Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and other university resources are readily available for support. Residents have consistently presented at regional and international meetings.
On average, 80% of our residents chose an additional fellowship year. Our board certification rates are consistently above national average and we successfully place our graduates into the best practices and most competitive fellowships.
A busy, but reasonable work schedule, collegial atmosphere, and world class infrastructure are the hallmarks of resident life at Tufts. Our attention to work life balance, feedback, and wellness provide a supportive environment for our residents to thrive. Graduating residents remember their time at Tufts with a sense of pride, satisfaction, and fondness. We are committed to nurturing a dynamic environment that promotes the learning, teaching and practice of the clinical, intellectual and ethical aspects of our specialty. Our program remains well positioned to seek out innovative educational opportunities for our residents and produce tomorrow’s leaders in anesthesiology. Thank you again for your interest in our program. We look forward to hearing from you. Maurice Joyce, MD Program Director Email: mjoyce@tuftsmedicalcenter.org
It consists of four components:
In the latter half of the CA-1 year, the residents benefit from early subspecialty exposure in ambulatory surgery, neuroanesthesia, pediatrics, obstetrics, and cardiothoracic anesthesia.
During the CA-1 year, emphasis is placed on airway management, monitoring, life support, and the basics of anesthesiology. Under close faculty guidance, residents are given progressive responsibility for total anesthetic management of patients in the operating room, as well as the labor and delivery floor.
In the CA-2 year, residents are afforded an appreciation for the expanding role of the anesthesiologist outside the operating room as well as responsibility for management of more complex patients and procedures in the operating room.
In addition to performing cases in the 15-room inpatient operating suite, 8-room ambulatory surgery operating area, residents complete one month of obstetric anesthesia at Tufts Medical Center and one month at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Subspecialty rotations continue in neuroanesthesia, vascular, thoracic, cardiac, obstetric, pediatric, regional, and ambulatory anesthesia, as well as pain management and ICU.
CA-3 residents have four months of electives that are customizable to each residents’ career goals. During the remainder of their CA-3 year, residents gain experience caring for complex patients by rotating through subspecialty areas. In addition, senior residents are provided with the valuable experience of supervising and teaching junior residents.
The current options for electives are:
On-campus:
Off-campus:
Our academic mission is built on a philosophy of capturing the maximum breath of educational content through optimal resource utilization while always remaining learner centric. By recognizing that comprehension of material occurs best when the teaching modality is congruent, we strategically incorporate lectures, simulation, in-training preparation, oral board practice, and skills labs (echocardiography, regional, vascular access) to provide the most high-yield educational experience for each of our residents. We strive to match the topic and format to create a synergistic learning opportunity where mastery of the content can be achieved. The strength of our training program in anesthesiology lies in the commitment of our faculty to resident education. This is accomplished by the integration of a carefully designed, well organized didactic lecture series into the clinical experience. It is a priority of our department that residents be uniformly relieved of their clinical duties to attend departmental lectures. The didactic lecture series is based upon the ABA Content Outlined for the BASIC, In-Training, and Advanced exams. The program provides four hours of didactic activities per week, which unlike many programs is scheduled within the work day.
Customized program for CA-1s and senior residents: The resident education program commences with a daily lecture series specifically for the CA-1 residents in July to mid-August. Lectures on basic concepts, skills lab, and simulation during our anesthesia boot camp are conducted in considerable depth in small group sessions. From September onwards, CA-1 residents have a faculty moderated didactic program following the ABA Content Outline. The senior curriculum is a lecture/seminar series that covers all the major advanced topics and specialty areas of anesthesia in a 2-year rotating curriculum.
All residents are relieved for 2 hours every Wednesday and Thursday between 3 and 5 PM to attend education sessions. Specialty blocks are coordinated by section chiefs and cover respiratory, cardiac, pediatric, obstetric and pain topics in addition to physics, pharmacology and renal/endocrine blocks. Additionally, residents participate in morbidity and mortality conferences, quality improvement meetings, and journal club sessions where they are required to give formal presentations on topics of their choice throughout the year.
Keyword sessions are led by a CA-2 resident and conducted in one-hour sessions twice a month.
Departmental grand rounds are held on Thursday between 7-8 am.
Board Preparation: A fully immersive formal mock oral examination is given to all CA-3 residents and interested junior residents. The experience is designed to parallel ABA exam conditions, format, and style to help residents obtain an accurate self-assessment and practice in an environment of simulated stress. A full mock OSCE examination consisting of stations designed from the ABA OSCE content outline is also held in the spring. Our graduating residents have continually remarked on how valuable they found these experiences to be for their board exam preparation. In addition, sessions with board-type practice questions covering material taught in the core lecture blocks are frequently held to assist with resident knowledge consolidation. Residents can also arrange for a private mock oral exam with a faculty member by request as well. All residents take the annual In-Training Examination administered by the American Board of Anesthesiology as well as the Anesthesia Knowledge Test (AKT). The AKT is administered four times during the course of training. Our intensive study program has produced a success rate for ABA specialty certification that exceeds the national average.
Simulation based training is provided at the Tufts University Clinical Skills and Simulation Center (CSSC). Our simulation center provides an interactive and supportive experiential learning environment for our residents. Our faculty enjoy teaching and closely supervising residents while they can practice essential problem-solving skills and dynamics of a team approach to acute patient care. It is a once monthly program covering a wide range of clinical scenarios with an extensive debriefing session for residents at all levels. Training at the center includes ACLS, PALS, and procedure simulations. ACLS certification is readily available to all residents. Several senior residents are sponsored to attend the Anesthesia Crisis Resource Management Course (ACRM) at the Harvard Center of Medical Simulation (CMS) at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We believe that through simulation, we can build a culture of safety and improve patient care.
Selection to our residency program is highly competitive. Listed below are the requirements for entrance to the core residency program in anesthesiology at Tufts Medical Center.
Applications are accepted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS), which is administered by the Association of American Medical Colleges. AAMC developed ERAS to transmit residency applications, letters of recommendation, dean's letters, transcripts, and other supporting credentials from applicants and medical schools to residency directors using the Internet.
Additional requirements and documentation are as follows:
Please contact Madison Cornell if you have further questions about our program. Madison Cornell Program Coordinator, Anesthesia Residency Program Department of Anesthesiology, Tufts Medical Center 800 Washington Street, Box 298 Boston, MA 02111 Phone: 617-636-9303 Fax: 617-636-8384 Email: mcornell@tuftsmedicalcenter.org
