About
The department of Anesthesiology is deeply committed to helping the community, both locally and globally. Tangible, local outreach endeavors include transport programs (Neonatal Critical Care Transport, Adult Critical Care Transport) that were developed to permit transportation of critically ill patients from institutions with inadequate facilities to Stanford hospitals for state-of-the-art care. On a global level, many faculty have participated in medical volunteer efforts in disadvantaged countries of the world.
Faculty and residents have also been involved in helping improve the health and wellbeing of endangered and exotic animal species.
Packard Paws
In March 2018, Dr. Rashmi Bhandari, PhD the Director of Pediatric Pain Psychological Services at the Pediatric Pain Clinic (PPMC) in Menlo Park, trained Sonya (5-year-old mini Australian labradoodle) as a therapy dog, who then joined the Packard Paw program and became the first dog to work in an outpatient pain clinic in the country. At the clinic, Sonya offers distraction, fun, and comfort to children and families who are struggling with chronic pain. Recently Sonya raised $1000 for the Packard Paw program at Stanford Children and the patients she serves had great praise for her contribution on the PPMC team.
HUGS
The mission of HUGS (Help Us Give Smiles) is to deliver free medical care to children and adolescents challenged by microtia, cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities. Dr. Pandora Chua, chief resident in the Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, joined Dr. Ramamurthi and thirty team members from across the country on their mission trip to Antigua, Guatemala in September 2018.
Project Lead the Way
To help build our future healthcare workforce we have partnered with the California Society of Anesthesiologists (CSA), the national nonprofit Project Lead the Way, and California Assemblymember Evan Low to bring a new biomedical sciences curriculum into three Silicon Valley high schools: Palo Alto High School, Willow Glen High School and Leland High School.
Bi-directional Partnership with University of Rwanda Continues
Dr. James McAvoy, chief resident in the Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine traveled to Rwanda with the Department’s Division of Global Health, co-sponsored by the American Society of Anesthesiologists Global Humanitarian Outreach (ASA-GHO) and the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society International Education Foundation (CASIEF) on a teaching mission aimed at developing Rwandan anesthesiology residents’ skills in simulated and clinical settings.
Global Anesthesia
Many of our faculty are involved in overseas countries providing free anesthesia care to the poor and indigent peoples of the world. Our residents get exposed to these experiences while training, in the hopes that they will find a lifelong passion for this work.
We partner with many organizations, including Interplast (which was started in 1969 with the support of our department), Hospital de la Familia, Medical Missions for Children, Mercy Ships, Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO invites CA2 residents to apply for SEA-Katz traveling fellowships to fund a 3-4 week overseas experience; application deadline is March of each year), Rotaplast, and others. There are also opportunities to serve overseas as an anesthesia educator. The ASA Overseas Training Program has been administrated by one of our faculty, Dr. Alice Edler. This training program supports two indigenous anesthesia training programs: one in Ghana and one in Tanzania. There are also significant opportunities for formal anesthesia instruction with Interplast.