Mission Possible: Successful Careers in Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology—What I Wish I Had Known in the First 5 Years After Fellowship

European Association of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Fellowship Program: The Graduates' Experience

OBJECTIVES

In 2009, the European Association of Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology and Intensive Care (EACTAIC) established a fellowship program to train highly qualified specialists in the field of cardiac anesthesia. For the further development of the program, a survey among graduates was distributed to get information about the individual motivation and career perspectives of fellows.

DESIGN

Online survey among graduates of the EACTAIC cardiothoracic and vascular anesthesia (CTVA) fellowship program.

SETTING

Twenty-four-item online survey after personal invitation from the EACTAIC office PARTICIPANTS: Forty-nine graduates.

INTERVENTIONS

None.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

The survey had a response rate of 77%. On average, graduates joined the EACTAIC fellowship program four years after completing their residency program. Participants felt well-prepared by the program regarding their clinical and nonclinical skills. The majority participated in research activities during the fellowship and continued to work in the field of CTVA. Ninety-two percent of the respondents found a job opportunity within a reasonable time after completing the training.

CONCLUSIONS

Among the respondents, the survey showed a high satisfactory rate with the received training and good job opportunities after completing the fellowship. Further research should investigate the question of beneficial effects on research activities after completing the fellowship.

Pediatric anesthesia training to early career stage: Opportunities for firm foundations

Attaining professional contentment can be challenging for many. Academic success, psychosocial support, and the confidence to provide excellent clinical care at the workplace are key pillars that can help build a sense of meaning in a career. The role of mentorship in facilitating these key pillars at different stages of pediatric anesthesia training and new independent practice is instrumental. For mentees aspiring for a career in pediatric anesthesia, there are several points of focus. Mentees should seek out mentors early in training, build on these relationships, and explore opportunities for peer mentorship as they advance in their career. For mentors, introducing mentees to the clinical and academic aspects of pediatric anesthesia and setting the foundation for the mentee to advance in their career can be both gratifying and stimulating. In this article, we explore the development and progression of a mentor-mentee relationship through training to the early career stage and its role in developing a meaningful career in pediatric anesthesia.

Systematic review and bibliometric analysis of African anesthesia and critical care medicine research part I: hierarchy of evidence and scholarly productivity

BACKGROUND

Research is an essential component of Anesthesia, and the contributions of researchers and institutions can be appreciated from the analysis of scholarly outputs. Such analyses help identify major contributors and trends in publication. Little is known about the state of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine (A.C.C.M.) research in Africa. We aimed to describe African A.C.C.M. research's current landscape by determining its productivity per country and point towards possible ideas for improvement.

METHODS

The authors searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) from inception to May 4, 2020, for articles on or about A.C.C.M. in Africa. Studies were selected based on their titles and abstracts. Rayyan software was later on used for data management in the review selection process. Then, the full-text of eligible articles were screened. Data were extracted, and the number of articles per physician anesthesia providers and provider density were calculated. Kruskal Wallis test and Spearman's correlation were used, and a P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS

Of the 4690 articles, only 886 (18.9%) were included in the analysis. The articles were published between 1946 and 2020 in 278 target journals. 55 (6.2%) articles were published in the South African Journal of Surgery, 51 (5.8%) in Anesthesia and Analgesia, and 46 (5.2%) in Anaesthesia. 291 (32.8%) studies were cross-sectional. 195 (22.0%) first authors were from Nigeria, 118 (13.3%) from South Africa, and 88 (9.9%) from the U.S.A. Malawi (1.67), Togo (1.06), and Sierra Leone (1.00) had the highest number of articles per provider. Whereas Ethiopia (580.00), Nigeria (336.21), and Malawi (333.33) had the highest number of articles per provider density.

CONCLUSION

We identified the most and least productive African countries in A.C.C.M. research and a low-quality hierarchy of evidence in these publications. Hence, the study's findings may aid in driving the A.C.C.M. research agenda and capacity building in Africa.

Evaluation of a Brazilian's cardiovascular anesthesia fellowship by its former trainees

Background

After advancement of cardiovascular surgery, there is also exponential development of anesthetic techniques in this field. Patients with increasing clinical complexity challenge cardiac anesthesiologists to keep constantly updated. An evaluation of Brazilian's cardiovascular anesthesia fellowship at Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology has been made and information has been collected to evaluate the fellowship program in cardiovascular anesthesia.

Method

Target participants were made up of former fellowships, contacted via e-mail containing an invitation to voluntarily participate. Explanation of the survey's purpose was provided. This communication was signed by the authors and contained a hyperlink to the survey, which was constructed on and hosted on a web platform. The survey was composed of 10 objectives questions designed to describe training and subsequent career.

Results

The adjusted survey response rate was 71%. Two-thirds of respondents agreed that fellowship training provided them an advantage in the job market and 93% of respondents currently work with cardiac anesthesia. At least 87% of participants would recommend the course to other anesthesiologists.

Conclusion

Fellowship graduates judge their technical training as excellent and incorporated the knowledge acquired in their daily practice. However, there are improvements to be made. We believe this document may be useful as a reference for other institutions to develop their own cardiovascular anesthesia fellowship programs.