Clinical Sections

Post Anesthesia Care Unit

Patients admitted to the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) are evaluated by the anesthesiology resident assigned to the PACU. The resident assesses all patients upon arrival, monitors their recovery, and assumes responsibility for the overall management of patients during their PACU stay. The resident is exposed to common and uncommon problems encountered in patients recovering from anesthesia. Additionally, a series of problem-based discussions provide a thorough didactic component on post anesthesia management.

Surgical Intensive Care Unit

Education provides the foundation for our future! Our faculty and staff are dedicated to the pursuit and sharing of knowledge, as well as to the development and refinement of superb technical skills. Our educational, clinical and research missions complement each other to increase our specialty's font of knowledge and to prepare future generations of physicians.

The Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) is a critical care service which provides perioperative and general critical care for patients on all the adult surgical services (excluding the cardiothoracic service). The SICU service covers a 14 bed general surgical ICU, a six-bed intermediate care unit, and frequent overflow patients in the adjacent neurosurgical care unit. The critical care team is directed by anesthesiology and surgical faculty from the Section of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, plus anesthesiology and surgery critical care fellows. The entire team includes Anesthesiology, Surgery and Emergency Medicine residents along with medical students, dieticians, pharmacists, social workers, and a large group of highly skilled nurses.

There are extensive daily teaching rounds, formal daily and weekly teaching sessions, and frequent morbidity & mortality, quality assurance and ethics conferences. All anesthesiology residents take two one-month rotations in the SICU to fulfill their required exposure to critical care.