Anesthesiology Leadership Pathways at Stanford

Advocacy & Policy

The Advocacy and Policy Pathway is designed to foster a deep understanding of the healthcare landscape, empowering residents to become effective advocates for their patients, profession, and the broader healthcare system. The pathway offers exposure to leading professional bodies like the California Society of Anesthesiologists (CSA) and the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) while providing firsthand experience in legislative processes and policy-making. The program enhances advocacy skills, enabling the trainees to voice the needs and concerns of anesthesiologists effectively. It further provides insights into the challenges in the field, including the increasing independence of CRNAs and issues surrounding insurance billing practices. Additionally, it addresses potential workforce shortages, stimulating the development of strategies to maintain a robust anesthesiology workforce.

Advocacy Pathway Lead: Sheela Pai Cole MD, FASE, FASA

Clinical Research

The Research Pathway connects residents with mentors within and outside the department to guide them through their research journey, fostering their development and providing invaluable advice. It further provides opportunities for networking with like-minded individuals. The pathway focuses on enhancing both clinical practice and academic experiences by teaching the fundamentals of scientific writing, delivering impactful research presentations, and critically evaluating research. Topics covered in the pathway span from clinical trials and data science to translational research. Furthermore, the program helps residents avoid common research pitfalls by providing practical tips and strategies. Experience the thrill of research and be at the forefront of innovation in anesthesiology.

Research Pathway Lead: Eric Gross, MD, PhD

Visit our Resident Research webpage to learn more.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

The DEI Pathway equips residents with necessary skills to lead diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. This program, tailored to suit individual goals, educates residents about the art of converting visions into actionable projects, effectively manage these projects, lead meetings, and create scholarly work around DEI within an academic setup. The learning objectives include understanding how to pioneer DEI efforts in an academic anesthesiology department, listing diversity efforts at multiple levels of the organization, and developing leadership skills. Moreover, residents have opportunities for leadership roles, attending diversity council meetings, enrolling in a 10-month LEAD program with other GME residents from across Stanford, creating outreach efforts to high school students, and working on a scholarly project. Notably, the program offers mentorship to residents, helping them attain their goals and promoting professional growth.

DEI Pathway Lead: Felipe Perez, MD, FAAP

Visit the ODIHE website to learn more

Global Health Equity

The Global Health Equity (GHE) Pathway, established in 2018, equips residents and fellows to lead in perioperative global health. It offers foundational education, exposure to field trends, scholarly collaboration, and mentorship for career building. The pathway aims to motivate and educate future advocates, prepare them to work in diverse resource settings, and engage in partnerships to innovate for patient care disparity solutions. Upon completion of the course, opportunities include attending a monthly lecture series, completing the online course, participating in a global health experience like rotations at partner sites in Rwanda, Tanzania, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Guyana, and scholarship with presentations and publications.

GHE Pathway Lead: Sara Strowd, MD, MPH & Michelle Arteaga, MS, MHA

Visit the Global Anesthesia Programs webpage to learn more.

Innovation, Design & Entrepreneurship in Anesthesia (IDEA)

The Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship (IDEA) Pathway develops anesthesiology innovators by enabling residents to identify clinical needs, create innovative solutions, and implement these ideas. The program enhances skills in workflow observation, data analysis, concept creation, understanding intellectual property rights, and business planning. It features monthly meetings with case studies and guest lectures, promotes self-guided learning, enables networking within Stanford's innovation community, and provides mentorship from bio-design experts. A capstone project culminates the training, encouraging residents to tackle systemic challenges. After completion, residents can further their projects, pursue corporate advisories, and venture into industry consulting or entrepreneurship.

IDEA Pathway Lead: Barrett Larson, MD

Medical Education

The Medical Education Pathway (MEP) prepares residents for a career in medical education via enhancing teaching and curriculum development skills, promoting proficiency in evaluation tools, and instilling knowledge in educational research. The pathway cultivates educational scholarship, provides interaction with in-house education experts, nurtures mentoring relationships, and includes participation in the Stanford Health Professions Education and Scholarship (SHAPES) Program at the Stanford University School of Medicine. SHAPES offers monthly lectures culminating in an annual conference where residents present capstone projects. With opportunities to explore simulation as a teaching tool, the MEP aims to create medical education leaders, improve teaching skills per adult learning theories, and help residents earn an Honors Certificate in Medical Education through SHAPES.

Medical Education Pathway Lead: Perin Kothari, DO

Quality Improvement and Informatics

The Quality Improvement and Informatics Pathway provides residents with foundational knowledge and exposure in the fields of quality improvement, patient safety, and clinical informatics, as well as how each field interrelates with the others. Residents will receive mentorship from faculty members actively engaged in efforts both locally and nationally in these areas. Continuous improvement is a foundational mindset that we hope to inspire and cultivate in graduates of this pathway. Learning objectives center on quality improvement elements and clinical informatics in fostering promoting patient safety and quality improvement via human factors, data analytics, clinical decision support, and health information technologies. Residents participate in sessions like monthly lectures, complete the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) basic certificate, have presentation opportunities, and culminate their experience with a final group project presentation.

QI and Informatics Pathway Lead: Roya Saffary, MD and James Xie, MD