From the Chairman 2 Residency Program 2 Clinical Operations 2 Research & Publications 3 Golf tournament 4 Fellowships & Awards 5 Restaurant review 6 Quality & Assurance 7 CAS Meeting 7 Upcoming Events 8 Inside this Issue University Department (1966), we remained a Section of Surgery at the Winnipeg General Hospital. A report by Dr. Robert Dripps (1963) the distinguished Anesthesiologist from the University of Pennsyl- vania, had described the status of Anesthesia in Manitoba-with con- cerns about clinical care, a lack of strong educational programs and the absence of research. Anesthe- sia was young but an emerging specialty. I was the only Anesthe- sia GFT, a young investigator, en- joying teaching in a strong Physiol- ogy Depart- ment and not anxious to accept an administra- tive role. However, I was commit- ted to the Department of Anesthesia after being a member of the Depart- ment at UCSF. The good news was the support from other University departments (Medicine, Physiol- ogy, Pharmacology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Surgery). The Anesthesia community here wanted an academic department and provided strong support (Donna Huggins, Pat McGarry, Sam Kantor, Tom McCaughey and Bob Milner). The partnership groups and I decided to work together with people such as Y.K. Poon, Tino Ethans, Max Minuck, Jack Culligan and Leo Cruickshank providing advice and encouragement. But I needed help. I had a strong aca- demic background but my adminis- trative skills were weak. Fortu- nately, I was able to recruit Dr. Doug Craig from McGill and we became a team and soon recruited Dr. Joe Lee from UCSF. Having been in private practice, I realized the partnership groups (first WGH Adult and Children’s and then St. PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE Summer 2008 Boniface) and I needed to work together. After discussion with the University, it was agreed that Anesthesia GFT members could continue as partners in the groups. This was a different arrange- ment for the Faculty of Medicine, but I believed finances were important and needed to be transparent. All members of the Department required University appointments, with appropriate University and Hospital funding that I would control. Those in pri- vate practice would commit to clinical care, education and sup- port research. External events started to shape us. The Royal College ruled that all residency programs would be university rather than hos- pital-based. Medicare changed the financial picture for years and Anesthesiologists had been sala- ried hospital employees, but later became fee-for-service (modeled after the California Relative Value Guide of the time). With Doug Craig’s input we worked to invigorate our clini- cal, educational and research programs. We established weekly rounds, which meant delaying surgery, developed a resident edu- cation day, established a residency program curriculum, started talk rounds and instituted practice exams. The number of women in medicine increased and required a “new look” for residency programs. We began to recruit Manitoba students. The residency program became recognized and residents came from other uni- versities. Our internal residency program was evolving, but we felt some of our residents required training we were not yet able to provide. We encouraged and supported residents to “finish” at leading institutions; UCSF, University of Washington (Seattle), Boston, Copenhagen and then recruited them back to Winnipeg. We developed people with clinical skills and leadership in Obstet- rical Anesthesia, Intensive Care, Emergency Room, Cardiac Anes- thesia and Neuro-Anesthesia, and started a Pain Clinic. Research took time to build but we were able to obtain provincial, national and international funding. Many of our residents developed re- search skills elsewhere that we needed to provide for on their return - Obstetrical anesthesia, the “sheep lab”, clinical research on cardio-respiratory regulation control, pharmacology, and neuro- physiology. Doug and I were concerned about how we “measured up” in clinical care. Anesthesia had the highest CMPA fees. We started to use the anesthesia record Thank you for the invitation to reflect on my early years in the Department of Anesthesia! In December 1968, I received a taped message, dictated by Dr. James. Park- house, the first University of Manitoba Pro- fessor and Chair of Anes- thesia, advising me he was re- turning to Great Britain. I was appointed the Acting Chair and became Chair in 1969. After General Practice (including pro- viding GP Anesthesia) in Taber Alberta, I completed a Residency and Fellowship in Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), completed my FRCPS in 1967 and returned to Winnipeg as an Assistant Profes- sor in Physiology and Anesthesia. Although Anesthesia was a recent Dr. Doug Craig Fr left: Hisashi Furuiye, Joe Lee, Brian Lyder, Y.K. Poon, Can anyone identify her?, Gerry Bristow, Glenn Dodds, Doug Craig, Peter Duke, John Wade, Don Reimer Continued on page 2 Dr. John Wade Anesthesia forum
Transcript
From the Chairman 2 Residency Program 2 Clinical Operations 2 Research & Publications 3 Golf tournament 4 Fellowships & Awards 5 Restaurant review 6 Quality & Assurance 7 CAS Meeting 7 Upcoming Events 8
Inside this Issue
University Department (1966), we remained a Section of Surgery at the Winnipeg General Hospital. A report by Dr. Robert Dripps (1963) the distinguished Anesthesiologist from the University of Pennsyl-vania, had described the status of Anesthesia in Manitoba-with con-cerns about clinical care, a lack of strong educational programs and the absence of research. Anesthe-sia was young but an emerging specialty. I was the only Anesthe-sia GFT, a young investigator, en-joying teaching in a strong Physiol-ogy Depart-ment and not anxious to accept an administra-tive role. However, I was commit-ted to the Department of Anesthesia after being a member of the Depart-ment at UCSF. The good news was the support from other University departments (Medicine, Physiol-ogy, Pharmacology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Surgery). The Anesthesia community here wanted an academic department and provided strong support (Donna Huggins, Pat McGarry, Sam Kantor, Tom McCaughey and Bob Milner). The partnership groups and I decided to work together with people such as Y.K. Poon, Tino Ethans, Max Minuck, Jack Culligan and Leo Cruickshank providing advice and encouragement. But I needed help. I had a strong aca-demic background but my adminis-trative skills were weak. Fortu-nately, I was able to recruit Dr. Doug Craig from McGill and we became a team and soon recruited Dr. Joe Lee from UCSF. Having been in private practice, I realized the partnership groups (first WGH Adult and Children’s and then St.
PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
S u m m e r 2 0 0 8
Boniface) and I needed to work together. After discussion with the University, it was agreed that Anesthesia GFT members could continue as partners in the groups. This was a different arrange-ment for the Faculty of Medicine, but I believed finances were important and needed to be transparent. All members of the Department required University appointments, with appropriate University and Hospital funding that I would control. Those in pri-vate practice would commit to clinical care, education and sup-port research. External events started to shape us. The Royal College ruled that all residency programs would be university rather than hos-pital-based. Medicare changed the financial picture for years and Anesthesiologists had been sala-ried hospital employees, but later became fee-for-service (modeled after the California Relative Value Guide of the time). With Doug Craig’s input we worked to invigorate our clini-cal, educational and research programs. We established weekly rounds, which meant delaying surgery, developed a resident edu-cation day, established a residency program curriculum, started talk rounds and instituted practice exams. The number of women in medicine increased and required a “new look” for residency programs. We began to recruit Manitoba students. The residency program became recognized and residents came from other uni-versities. Our internal residency program was evolving, but we felt some of our residents required training we were not yet able to provide. We encouraged and supported residents to “finish” at leading institutions; UCSF, University of Washington (Seattle), Boston, Copenhagen and then recruited them back to Winnipeg. We developed people with clinical skills and leadership in Obstet-rical Anesthesia, Intensive Care, Emergency Room, Cardiac Anes-thesia and Neuro-Anesthesia, and started a Pain Clinic. Research took time to build but we were able to obtain provincial, national and international funding. Many of our residents developed re-search skills elsewhere that we needed to provide for on their return - Obstetrical anesthesia, the “sheep lab”, clinical research on cardio-respiratory regulation control, pharmacology, and neuro-physiology. Doug and I were concerned about how we “measured up” in clinical care. Anesthesia had the highest CMPA fees. We started to use the anesthesia record
Thank you for the invitation to reflect on my early years in the Department of Anesthesia! In December 1968, I received a taped message, dictated by Dr.
James. Park-house, the first University of Manitoba Pro-fessor and Chair of Anes-thesia, advising me he was re-turning to Great Britain. I was
appointed the Acting Chair and became Chair in 1969. After General Practice (including pro-viding GP Anesthesia) in Taber Alberta, I completed a Residency and Fellowship in Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), completed my FRCPS in 1967 and returned to Winnipeg as an Assistant Profes-sor in Physiology and Anesthesia. Although Anesthesia was a recent
Dr. Doug Craig Fr left: Hisashi Furuiye, Joe Lee, Brian Lyder, Y.K. Poon, Can anyone identify her?, Gerry Bristow, Glenn Dodds, Doug Craig, Peter Duke, John Wade, Don Reimer
Continued on page 2
Dr. John Wade
Anesthesia forum
This first publication of this newsletter repre-sents the commitment and hard work of many. Our Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Shawn Young, Co-Editor,
Bruce Anderson, WRHA Anesthesia Program Man-ager and Publisher Tina Chicheluk and many oth-ers have worked diligently to make this happen. We hope the newsletter will showcase the clinical, academic and social ac-tivities of faculty, resi-dents, students and staff, including relevant matters related to the administra-tive activities of the Anes-thesia Department-Program and the various hospital-clinic sites we serve. I am thankful to the University of Manitoba and the WRHA for their
generous financial sup-port for this important project; their ongoing funding for this endeavor will ensure its growth. Our goal as a department and region is to continue building on a tradition of excellence. In the clinical arena, the challenges of regionalization require the provision of clinical care at a large number of sites, making recruitment and the ability of faculty to have a well-balanced clinical practice difficult. Similarly, we are faced with increasing demands (but also opportunities)
The past year has seen the recruitment of a num-ber of new individuals to Winnipeg. These include Dr. Sanjay Aragola, Dr. Jenifer Ballen, Dr. Krishna Raghavendran, Dr. Brian Kuo, Dr. Elia Peled, Dr.
Jassie Pretorius, Dr. Chin-niampa Rajamohan, Dr. Manjot Sandhu, Dr. Jo-hann Strumpher and Dr. Joel Zivot. On a region-wide basis, there is still a shortage of anesthesiologists. Clini-cal demands have been met because individuals are working above their desired FTE. We have also had Anesthesiolo-gists doing locums in Winnipeg. Most of the community hospitals are fully staffed and the short-age of anesthesiologists is primarily at HSC and St.
FROM THE CHAIRMAN
CLINICAL OPERATIONS
RESIDENT PROGRAM Wabari, Amit Chopra, Hema Bagry, Kevin Froeh-lich, Chinniampalayam Rajamohan, Pam Rohald, Shuen Tan and Mae Tsang and offer a huge thank you to everyone who gave pro-digiously of their time for the oral training sessions. A brief educational up-date: Webeval Daily evaluation forms are being killed in favour of biweekly summaries in Webeval. Please continue to give daily feedback verbally, but hopefully we will get more and better
Another year and Uni-versity of Manitoba swept the exams once again! I want to con-gratulate Fahd Al-Gurashi, Mansour Al-
Page 2
information this way for assessments. Multiple trainees It will become increas-ingly common to have a junior and a senior trainee in the same room. This is partly due to space, but more so to engage residents in teaching. This may be an adjustment, but a good one if we make so.
Boniface where there is a shortfall of approximately 3-4 FTEs per site. There are a number of new individuals joining the staff and these include Dr. Kevin Froelich (HSC), Dr. Mae Tsang (St. Boniface & Seven Oaks), Dr. Fiasal Siddiqui (Critical Care & Anesthesia at HSC), Dr. Patty Mykytiuk (Chronic Pain & HSC). Dr. Martin Weirich will be leaving in September for a position in Penticton, B.C. The An-esthesia Department at the Health Sciences Cen-tre has begun medical
coverage of a surgical step-down unit. This started June 9, 2008. This represents a new initiative in the realm of perioperative medi-cine with Dr. Heather McDonald appointed as the Medical Direc-tor. This is a very excit-ing development and may be the harbinger of an expanded role for Anesthesia in hospitals in Canada.
Wow! Another clean sweep! Congratulations to our fifth years for all passing the Royal College exams…. Year after year, the continued success of
our graduates is a testament to the amazing teaching and superior preparation afforded to us by training in Winnipeg. Indeed, the state of the resi-dency is strong! We are also very excited about welcoming the next batch of matriculat-ing first years into our pro-gram, as we know they are equally keen to get started on their careers in anesthesia. Yes, one group graduates, another just starts, and thus the inevitable cycle continues!
for teaching our areas of expertise to various groups, including undergraduate students and residents from our and other pro-grams as well as other heath care students. This teaching is expanding be-yond our traditional areas to include pain therapy, perioperative medicine, simulation, critical care and other areas. Our research and innovative aspect of our department-program is showing excellent promise. The Academic Oversight Committee is now fully func-tional as the custodian of the academic funds has
Continued from page 1
Past, Present & Future as the source of data that was computerized allowing “outcome” studies, utilizing nurse clinicians. In Manitoba, and nationally, these studies contributed to the “Guidelines for Practice” published annu-ally by CAS. As we matured and expanded, department members participated provin-cially, nationally and interna-tionally as journal editors on Royal College Specialty and Examination Committees, CAS, reviewers for MRC, NIH, and Heart and Stroke, and in leadership positions in medi-cal associations and regula-tory bodies. We did have success-but that only came because of broad support from many sources including the Anesthesia community.
awarded several operating and career advancement grants. Congratulations to all the successful faculty. How-ever, we have ongoing chal-lenges to secure adequate time and resources to recog-nize the faculty for their non-clinical activities. I am confi-dent that we can meet our goals of providing a excellent opportunities for clinicians, educators, researchers, ad-ministrators, or any combina-tion of these. I wish the entire faculty and staff a wonderful and safe summer.
PGY5 Chief Resident Tim Dickson
Anesthesia Department Head Dr. Eric Jacobsohn
Vice Chair of Education Dr. Rob Brown
Vice Chair of Medical Affairs Dr. Stephen Kowalski
“It is our anticipation that this funding will further
enhance the research pres-ence of the department”
Page 3
Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs, Dr. Alan Mutch
RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC AFFAIRS REPORT Funded Research by AOC 2007 The AOC awarded 6 operating grants at last year’s meeting. To date all research projects ap-proved for funding have ethics committee approval. Dr. Cindy Baron has completed two projects. The peri-operative course of morbidly obese vs. normal weight parturients and their infants has been completed. Nearly 1200 patients were studied. Data is currently being analyzed and the manuscript being prepared for submission. Cindy will present this research at the CAS in June. A second QA study comparing the agent and dosing for epidurals in parturients has also been com-pleted with over 600 assessments. Dr. Ruth Graham during her sab-batical has been studying the ad-ministration of high-dose surfac-tant in a porcine model of ARDS comparing modes of mechanical ventilation with CT-imaging. This work is approximately 2/3 fin-ished. In addition, Ruth received $30,000.00 from CARF and $15,000.00 from the D. Elaine Andison Fund as external funding for this project. Other funding sup-port has yet to be deliberated on. A valuable multi-department col-laboration has been initiated with this project – radiology, nuclear medicine, medical physics and radiochemistry. A multi-authored CIHR/NSERC grant for CT/PET imaging is being planned by the above group. Ruth will present the first RIP in many years in late June or early July on her current re-search. Dr. Alan Mutch has com-pleted his study with the Manitoba
Centre for Health Policy on the inci-dence of dementia following CABG, PCI or medical therapy for ischemic heart disease. This propensity matched analysis examined over 3000 patients. The data is under-going final analysis and the manu-script is being prepared. Dr. Mutch and fellows Drs. Ryan Pauls and Tim Dickson have completed a compari-son of the BIS monitor to the EEGo monitor to facilitate emergence from neurosurgical procedures.
This project was supported by CARF for $20,000.00. One case series has been submitted for publication and a second more comprehensive paper is being drafted. Kevin Froeh-lich’s work undertaken while in the laboratory (a comparison of differ-ent noise files to drive a variable ventilator) is in press in CJA. This work is to be accompanied by edito-rial commentary. Dr. Eric Sutherland and fellow Dr. Patricia Mykytiuk have launched a pharmacokinetic study of ultra-sound guided brachial blocks with and without epinephrine in patients undergoing physiotherapy. Dr. Joel Loiselle has begun recruit-
ing for a study of the efficacy of pregabalin to post-sternotomy pain following open heart surgery. Dr. Ian Sutton has begun re-cruiting for a study to com-pare post-operative pain with and without ketamine infusion after major back surgery. Dr. Steve Kowalski and fellow Dr. Brendan McCarthy have recently completed a pilot study comparing biologically variable ventilation to control mode ventilation in patients with ARDS. The results are now undergoing statistical analysis and manuscript preparation has commenced. Resident Research Night 2008 After the success of the Resi-dent Research Night last year we will follow up with Dr. Timo-thy Buchman as Visiting Pro-fessor and Award Adjudicator. Dr. Buchman is a Surgical Intensivist who is an active researcher in multi-organ fail-ure. A fuller description of the current resident projects and the pending projects from the incoming 4th year residents will be highlighted next news-letter. Major Meeting Presentations Presentations or Chairing Sessions have been done by the following: Dr. Jacobsohn (ASA, CAS), Dr. Christodoulou (ASA, CAS), Dr. Grocott (ASA, CAS), Dr. Bell (CAS), Dr. Cindy Baron (CAS), Dr. Mutch (ASA), Dr. Zivot (ASA, CAS).
Funding Announcement from AOC 2008 Up to 9 Operating Grants for $10,000.00 have been an-nounced from the most re-cent AOC meeting and 2 and perhaps 3 Academic Ad-vancement Grants for salary support ($40,000.00) for staff interesting in establish-ing a research base. It is our anticipation that this funding will further enhance the re-search presence of the De-partment and support the current cohort of residents pursuing their research time. These grants will be re-viewed at the AOC meeting scheduled for June 26, 2008. The submission forms have been circulated to all staff, fellows and residents. Apolo-gies if I have missed com-menting on any Departmen-tal member’s academic suc-cess. This is clearly a brief overview. If I have been remiss in com-mentary re your success please contact me by email and I will append in the next newsletter.
PU
BL
ICA
TIO
NS
Dr. Eric Jacobsohn New England Journal of Medicine
Dr. Peter Duke New England Journal of Medicine, Canadian Journal of Anesthesia
Dr. Hillary Grocott Anesthesiology, Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Canadian Journal of Anesthesia
Dr. Alan Mutch Critical Care Medicine, Canadian Journal of Medicine
Dr. Ruth Graham Critical Care Medicine
Dr. Stephen Kowalski Canadian Journal of Anesthesia
Dr. Roland DeBrouwere Canadian Journal of Anesthesia
Dr. Doug Maguire Canadian Journal of Anesthesia
Dr. Brian Muirhead Canadian Journal of Anesthesia
Dr. Bill Ong Canadian Journal of Anesthesia
Dr. Jim Enns Canadian Journal of Anesthesia
Page 4
The 2nd annual Anesthesia golf tour-nament was held on June 7th at Breezy Bend Golf and Country Club. Fun was had by all.
“The Grand Champs” Left:: Jamit Dhaliwal , Aaron MacInnes, Jack Kress, Jack Cannon, Archie Benoit, Marshall Lawrence
Sometimes things got a little rough
But others still found time for romance Ouch!!!
Coffee, tea or…
Longest Drive: Roger Bouchard, runner up Doug Maguire Closest to the pin: Scott McLeod, runner up Sherry Gard and Jack Kress A big thank you to Roli and Sandra Debrouwere for hosting another wonder-ful post golf get together as well as Laura-Lee Bouchard, Aaron MacInnes, Tammy and Scott McLeod of Fresenius-Kabi for helping out with this suc-cessful event.
Page 5
Left Kevin Froehlich, Dr. Rob Brown
The 2008 Joe Lee award was pre-sented to 5th year resident Kevin Froehlich.
Faisal Siddqui was the recipient of the 2008 Critical Care award.
FELLOWSHIPS IN ANESTHESIA
Dr. Amit Chopra will be starting a one year fel-lowship in Cardiac An-esthesia with the Uni-versity of Manitoba in July 2008. Welcome aboard Amit!
Coming from Van-couver, Dr. Jason Waechter has al-ready started his combined Cardiac/Critical Care Anes-thesia fellowship with the University of Manitoba. We welcome your arri-val to Winnipeg.
After completing a 6 month locum in Winnipeg, Dr. Kevin Froelich will be moving to Perth, Australia to pursue a one year fel-lowship in Thoracic Anes-thesia starting Jan 2009. Good luck mate!
Dr. Shuen Tan will be starting a Transfusion Medicine fellowship in Anesthesia at Richmond Hospital in B.C. starting September 2008.
Dr. Mansour AL-Wabari will be start-ing a Pediatric Anes-thesia fellowship in Ottawa starting July 2008.
Left: Bruce Light, Faisal Siddqui, David Lee, Kathie Lee, Robert K. Stoelting
Welcome to our Family Medicine Anesthesia residents, Dr. Jennifer St. Goddard and Dr. Ray Warkentin
FAMILY MEDICINE
Page 6
Star Conservatory Restaurant 15 Conservatory Drive Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg 897-7827
/
Recently a new restaurant has opened at the Assiniboine Park Conservatory. The Star Grill group has taken over this site from the former Ruby Begonia’s. The Star Conservatory Restaurant serves breakfast, brunch, lunch, and din-ner daily (hours 9:00 AM to 10:00 PM). Heather and I ate a very tasty lunch there recently. This is a busy place for lunch. It was full by 12:00 and thankfully we had a reservation. We chose to eat in the beautiful outdoor setting on the spacious patio. The main indoor restaurant is also pleasant
with natural light and good views to enjoy from its’ many windows. The menu offers many choices including vegetarian, meat, and fish options and there is a children’s menu. The menu is similar to the Star Grill on Portage opposite the footbridge to the Park (Star grill menu at http://www.stargrill.mb.ca/). Our food was very fresh, well prepared, and nicely presented. I chose the Hand-battered hali-but and chips. The halibut was perfectly cooked and delicious, and was served with star fries, a
leaf lettuce had replaced the endive. When asked about the absent endive, the waiter re-turned with information from the chef that endive was not available, and offered a free dessert. The highlight of the very good meal was Heather’s carrot ginger soup, a superb balance of flavours, slightly sweet and tart, and not over salted. Our waiter was helpful, prompt, and pleasant. Service was quite quick especially con-sidering the number of diners.
The Star Conservatory Restaurant offers a beautiful setting with good fresh food, well prepared, and served in a timely manner. It is a good spot to take family; older and younger. Reservations suggested.
Laurence Brownell
COMING & GOING
Gordon Giesbrecht, known as Dr. Popsicle
He's appeared on Letterman, dunked comedian Rick Mercer in freezing water, traveled solo across Lake Winnipeg in January in the dead of winter for the sake of hypothermia research and coined a few rules on cold-water survival. Next month, he will leave his professorship at the University of Manitoba's Health, Leisure and Human Per-formance Research Institute to plunge into the duties of presi-dent of Horizon College and Seminary, a Pentecostal Bible college in Saskatoon. Gord Giesbrecht,BPE 1985/MPE 1986/PhD 1990 received a joint appointment as an Assistant Professor in Anesthesia in Octo-ber 1991, became Associate
Dr. Max Minuck graduated from the University of Mani-toba Medical school in 1946. for the next 3½ years he practiced general medicine in Lafleche, Saskatchewan. Upon his return to Winnipeg, in 1951, he took up resi-dency in Anesthesia at St. Boniface Hospital. He re-mained Head of the Section of Anesthesia until he left for Phoenix, Arizona in 1976. during this time he led a successful campaign to have Anesthesia become a sepa-rate and independent de-partment both at the Univer-
Professor in 1997 and Profes-sor in 2001. In addition to a longstanding research col-laboration with Gerry Bristow (who provided medical super-vision of the Letterman adven-ture), Gord served with dis-tinction as the supervisor for 5 anesthesia residents who completed research projects in his laboratory. Through the years he was a loyal partici-pant in Departmental activi-ties including Wednesday rounds, residents’ seminar, research-in-progress sessions and the annual residents' research evening. The Department of Anesthesia will miss Gord’s participation as a valued colleague—we extend our best wishes to him and his family as Gord em-barks on his new career.
REMEMBERING
sity of Manitoba medical school and at the hospital. In 1973 he became a full time tenured Professor of anesthesia with the Univer-sity of Manitoba which en-abled him to fulfill his de-sire to pass on his exten-sive knowledge to future Anesthesiologists. He pub-lished many professional articles relating to the use of drugs in the manage-ment of cardiac arrest. Throughout his career he was active in anesthesia politics and became Presi-dent of the Canadian Anes-thesiologists’ Society in 1968.
This is the perfect venue to discuss the ongoing and upcoming quality initiatives within the anesthesia department and the region as a whole and provides an opportunity to highlight current trends worldwide and educational opportunities around the country. As many of you may know some of our current projects in-clude a 3 phased regional cart standardi-zation, the launch of a patient satisfac-tion survey at Misericordia Hospital, a multidisciplinary approach to OR narcotic control, a pilot survey on OR medication safety from the Institute for Safe Medica-tion Practices Canada (ISMP) beginning at St. Boniface Hospital, development of a data collection form for the new Surgi-cal Special Care Unit at Health Science Center, plus more. Around the corner is the revision of the anesthesia record, the standardization of the new Phillips moni-tor layout and alarm settings, and identi-fication of departmental quality improve-ment indicators. If you have quality or patient safety links, resources, ideas, or topics that you find interesting or impor-tant please feel free to email me so we can include them in upcoming issues. [email protected]
FROM THE EDITOR Our Mandate
Welcome to the first edition of the Anesthesia news-letter. I would like to thank Dr Wade for his opening article - it was worth reading a couple of times. He and Dr Craig have created a legacy that we have been the benefactors of for decades. I also want to thank Dr Craig for not only being a part of this legacy but for graciously agreeing to help us with the newsletter as senior editor. The idea of this newsletter was conceived coinciden-tally about nine months ago. We have not named our bouncing baby yet - “Gas Line” is the initial thought and may be the title we go with. However, with so many witty members in our community, we would like to hear some of your ideas before the next one comes out in autumn. There has been a tremendous change in our program at a number of levels in the last two years and there-fore a growing need to regularly and reliably update our members to the details and motivations of these changes. It is our mandate to publish the newsletter on a quarterly basis. We are aiming for between 4 and 8 pages depending on activity of the given period, but there may be room to expand beyond that (publishing costs are surprisingly inexpensive). Be-tween Dr Craig, Bruce Anderson, Tina Chicheluk, and myself we promise to do our best to keep the Anes-thesia community up to date with the administrative and academic activities of the region. We have asked for regular reports from the Chair, the Vice Chairs, the Academic Oversight Committee (to maintain absolute transparency of the tithe), and the senior resident. There is also an opportunity for intermittent reports from the various site leaders, reports on equipment acquisitions for the region, on quality assurance initia-tives, on perioperative care, pain medicine, etc. I also envision a strong educational component to the news-letter. We can reference recent influential papers in anesthesia, perioperative care, ICU, pain, etc. I may need some interdisciplinary advice on this one. Fi-nally, it needs to be a little fun too - this is where I sometimes struggle with appropriateness and partly why Dr Craig is looking over my shoulder. This is an exciting project that will likely evolve consid-erably over the coming year. We are looking for as much feedback and advice as you are willing to give so please contact us with your ideas.
Shawn Young
This years CAS in Halifax was rumoured to have had the highest atten-dance record to date. There is no doubt that the amazing location was a significant factor (this is now one of my favourite Canadian destinations). But, location aside, this was an exceptionally organized event. I was very impressed with the
quality of the presentations and discussions when com-pared to other events. We have a number of Winnipeg-gers to thank for their con-tribution/presentations: Cindy Baron, Dean Bell, Chris Christodoulou, Peter Duke, Hilary Grocott, Scott MacKenzie, Angie Mathi-eson, Al Mutch, Brian Muir-head, Eric Jacobsohn, and Joel Zivot; as well as resi-
dents: Fahd Algurashi, Amit Chopra, Tim Dickson, and Shuen Tan. I hope I got you all.
See you in Vancouver next year.
Shawn Young
Canada Day fun facts
...that Canada Day was named on October 27, 1982? Prior to that July 1 was referred to as Domin-ion Day. Perhaps Loblaws ob-jected!
...that a Voyageur, not a Loon, was originally going to be on the $1 coin? Would our pockets now be filled with Voyeurs instead of Loonies?
...that the last time a CFL club played an NFL club, the Canadi-ans won? It happened in a pre-season game in 1961 and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeated the Buffalo Bills 38-21.
According to Maclean’s magazine
Maclean's compared Canadians and Americans in every facet of our lives. We looked at who lives longer, who works more, who spends more time with friends, who travels more and who has more sex. We even found out who eats more vegetables. After dig-ging through the data, here's what we found: the staid, under-paid Canadian is dead. Believe it or not, we now have more wealth than Americans, even though we work shorter hours. We drink more often, but we live longer and have fewer diseases. We spend more time with family and friends, and more time exploring the world. Even in crime we come out ahead we're just as prone to break the law, but when we do it, we don't get shot. Most of the time, we don't even go to jail.
UPCOMING EVENTS World Institute of Pain’s (WIP) 13th Annual Advanced Interventional Pain conference, Practical Workshop and FIPP Examination , Sept 8-11, 2008 Kempinski Hotel Corvinus Budapest, Hungary
Society for Airway Management’s (SAM) 12th Annual Meeting, Sept 19-21, 2008 Seaport Hotel Boston, MA
University of Toronto 15th Annual Hands-on workshop Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine, Sept 25-28, 2008 White Oaks Conference Centre Niagara on the Lake, Ontario
American Society of Anesthesiologists, Oct 18-22, 2008 Orlando, Florida
Introductory Workshop for Ultrasound guided Nerve Blocks, Oct 31-Nov 2, 2008 Toronto Western Hospital
Local Anesthesia Research Symposium Nov 18, 2008 Manitoba Anesthesia Conference May 2, 2009
