The Northwestern McGaw Center for Graduate Medical Education offers a three-year clinical anesthesiology residency program emphasizing varied, extensive subspecialty training. The program is approved by the American Board of Anesthesiology. Applicants are admitted through the National Resident Matching Program or, if they are not eligible to participate in the Match, by applying directly to the residency program. A four-year continuum is available featuring internal medicine and critical care as well as rotations in cardiology and pulmonary medicine consultation services during the first year of the program. Anesthesiology residents at Northwestern gain experience in a variety of clinical settings, including Northwestern Memorial and Children's Memorial Hospitals. The diversity of experience helps them develop into complete perioperative physicians.
Each resident in anesthesiology administers anesthesia to approximately 1,000 patients during the first two years of the program (CA-1 and CA-2 years). Residents administer a suitable number of general and regional anesthetics to ensure proficiency in all techniques.
The CA-1 year stresses principles in general and regional anesthesia and lays a foundation for the CA-2 year. CA-1 residents are assigned to subject-specific rotations in regional anesthesia/orthopaedic surgery; anesthesia for general surgery, urology, gynecology/ambulatory surgery, otolaryngology/plastic surgery/ophthalmology; airway management, acute pain, and postanesthesia recovery. The CA-2 year consists of rotations in the subspecialties of cardiac, neuro-, obstetric, and pediatric anesthesiology; pain management; and critical care medicine. The CA-3 year is designed to foster the development of perioperative physician consultants. It offers advanced clinical anesthesia training at McGaw Center hospital affiliates that includes experiences in ambulatory, cardiac transplant, obstetrics, vascular anesthesia, and transesophageal echocardiography. Residents may also take elective advanced subspecialty training or plan a six-month research program by consulting with the department chair. The didactic portion of the anesthesiology residency program, which covers the topics pertinent to anesthesiology in the American Board of Anesthesiology's in-service council syllabus, is designed to create consultants in anesthesiology and perioperative medicine.
The department offers many formal educational conferences, including seminars, case conferences, cadaveric dissections, simulator training sessions, and written and oral board preparation seminars presented by faculty members and residents.
Informal intraoperative teaching is an integral part of resident education. The ratio of faculty members to residents allows ample time and opportunity for intraoperative instruction and demonstration. The didactic component of the residency is comprised of department-wide teaching to include a series of daily introductory lectures and simulation sessions during the first two months. Weekly didactics occur on Tuesday afternoons with evidence-based medicine conferences and written board review. Thursday mornings feature a chair-led morning report and an acute response curriculum in the patient safety simulator. Grand rounds take place on Friday mornings and are comprised of case conferences, journal club, Quality Management (M&M) sessions as well as visiting professorships. Daily didactic sessions are conducted on most of the subspecialty rotations. The department runs seminars at various times during the year, covering practice and creative airway management as well as two cadaver workshops in regional anesthesia and pain management and in surgical airway management. Residents take periodic oral, practical, and written exams to ensure appropriate progress in the program and are required to participate in the American Society of Anesthesiology in-training examination. The department chair meets regularly with each resident to discuss individual progress. Graduates of this program have performed at or above the 90th percentile on board exams. The department offers residents the opportunity to participate in basic science and clinical research. The faculty includes anesthesiologists who are world renowned in their fields and publish regularly in major journals and textbooks. Anesthesiology residents take call on an average of every fifth night; they are excused from clinical duty on the morning after night call.
The department gives CA-1 residents their basic anesthesiology texts; each CA-2 and CA-3 resident receives an annual book allowance. The department also provides parking for each resident.
The Office of Graduate Medical Education determines the amount of the residents' stipends, which are competitive with other Chicago area residents' salaries. The Department of Anesthesiology offers three 12-month fellowships accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and meeting the requirements of the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA). Applicants must be anesthesiologists eligible for certification or fully certified by the ABA before training begins and eligible for or have a permanent license to practice medicine in Illinois.
Contact the fellowship director for application materials. The fellowship provides an advanced educational experience in ambulatory anesthesiology as well as developing organizational and administrative skills. Fellows are trained in preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative management of cardiovascular, thoracic, and electrophysiologic surgical patients. In addition, fellows function as consultants in the cardiovascular ICU and perform numerous intraoperative real-time evaluations and postoperative TEE reviews with cardiologists. Fellows receive one non-clinical day weekly for academic and research pursuits. The fellow directs the overall care of patients in the intensive care units, developing expertise in procedures required to effectively practice critical care medicine. This fellowship is designed to provide advanced training in the management of neurovascular, brain, and complex spine surgeries with neurophysiologic monitoring and research. This fellowship is located at a Level III high-risk obstetrical unit that performs 10,000 deliveries per year, the largest number in the Midwest. This fellowship is an interventional pain medicine program which integrates injection therapies with pharmacologic and rehabilitative modalities and emphasizes comprehensive pain management. This fellowship is an individually designed mixture of pediatric clinical, academic, and research anesthesiology at Children’s Memorial Hospital. M. Christine Stock, MD, FCCP, FCCM
James E. Eckenhoff Professor of Anesthesiology Robert E. Molloy, MD
Residency Program Director Sherif Afifi, MD, FCCP, FCCM
Director, Critical Care Medicine Fellowship
Shireen Ahmad, MD
Director, Ambulatory Anesthesiology Fellowship
Steven C. Hall, MD
Director, Pediatric Anesthesiology Fellowship Antoun Koht, MD
Director, Neurosurgical Anesthesiology Fellowship Saadia S. Sherwani, MD
Director, Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology Fellowship
David R. Walega, MD
Director, Pain Medicine Fellowship Cynthia A. Wong, MD
Director, Obstetric Anesthesiology Fellowship Steven C. Hall, MD
Children's Memorial Hospital
Scott J. Greene, MD
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
For more information, contact Residency Administrator Christopher Zell, Department of Anesthesiology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, 251 East Huron Street, Suite 5-704, Chicago, Illinois 60611-2908, 312/926-8132; fax 312/926-9206 or visit the Department of Anesthesiology Web site.
E-mail:czell@nmff.org | 
Anesthesiology
