Chair's Fall Message
Welcome, Fall!
The first week of September is an exciting time. Historically, the fall was always a favourite time of year for my three children, as they looked forward to reconnecting with friends, a new set of pencil crayons, and the changing fall colours. As a department, we look forward to reconnecting with colleagues and welcoming new trainees. Our first-year residents have now settled into their professional roles under the watchful guidance of our faculty and more seasoned co-residents and fellows. We now have the opportunity to share critical learnings about resuscitation, pain medicine and anesthesia care with a new group of medical students.
What strikes me about this particular fall is the optimism voiced by many of our colleagues concerning their plans for educational and research pursuits. Over the past couple of academic years, we made substantial changes to the anesthesia residency program and have been rewarded with a positive review by accreditors from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Our education leaders are now well-positioned to identify additional opportunities improve our educational programs for the benefit of trainees and teachers.
Our department continues to provide outstanding care while shaping the future of our specialty. As an example, a report published last week in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia described a highly innovative model of care developed by the team at University Health Network. In that report, Marcus Salvatori and colleagues describe the safe use of an innovative Anesthesia Care Team model involving five anesthesia assistants for every anesthesiologist. According to this model, the team provides conscious sedation to support low-risk elective outpatient eye surgery at an independent health facility associated with the University of Toronto. In this newsletter, you can read about many more examples of pioneering work led by our colleagues, as they develop creative ways to ensure that all our patients have timely access to safe pain medicine and anesthesia care.
Our department remains committed to tackling tough problems that can’t adequately be addressed with our current knowledge, models of care, and available techniques. We deeply appreciate your contributions to the department and look forward to sharing your activities and accomplishments over the coming year. Please send us your updates. I wish you a very successful academic year!
