A message from Our Chief Residents

Hi everyone and welcome to the Stanford University Department of Anesthesiology, Pain, and Perioperative Medicine! We are the four "Stanesthesia" chiefs for this academic year: Aaron Brown, Eric Aksu, Jose Rios, and Andrew Bartuska: aka --> BARB). We want to start by saying thank you for taking the time to consider Stanford's anesthesiology residency program for the next step in your training. We know there are many AMAZING programs out there; however, we want to share why we truly believe this is the best place for YOU (with a 10,000% unbiased opinion, of course).

During your time at Stanford, you will never feel that cases are "missing" from your training! Pheo's, liver transplants, awake craniotomies.... Oh my!!! Don't get us wrong, getting to do all of these cases and more is truly incredible; however, what really makes training at Stanford special is the PEOPLE you get to do these cases with.

First and foremost, you have your amazing co-residents. Whether you are hanging out somewhere outside of the OR (at concerts, in San Francisco, or golfing) or catching up during our anesthesia breakfast break or resident-only chill space (the Gas Lounge), the friends you make training here will last a lifetime. Everyone is always ready with a smile or listening ear when you need it. In the OR, the attendings you get to learn from are truly incredible clinicians and often literally "wrote the book" on whatever "x" topic you are learning about! Despite being leaders in their field, our attendings are down-to-earth, approachable, and care about your wellbeing and education. Most importantly, they all see us as colleagues and friends.

We also want to make a quick plug for how committed our residency program is to helping you pursue your professional interests outside of Anesthesiology. Through our Anesthesia Leadership Pathways (ALPS), you can participate in a longitudinal curriculum that will help you become a leader in your area of interest. Some activities that residents have done in the past include travelling abroad to one of our partner sites in places Guyana, Rwanda, or other locations for global health experiences, using elective time for dedicated research, going to D.C for the ASA Policy Elective, travel to conferences (ie: LMSA, SNMA,) for recruitment and advocacy, partnering with hospital leadership for QI initiatives, earning a certification in medical education through the SHAPES program, and so much more!

One of the most important pieces of our program is without a doubt our program director, the one and only Dr. Marianne Chen. She has an open door policy, truly values resident feedback, and is always looking for ways to improve our curriculum to work towards building a program that residents are proud of. For example, our newly revamped Education Days, whole days once a month of dedicated and protected time for teaching, simulation, and quality improvement, were a huge effort from Dr. Chen and many others to improve on the education and teaching for our residents. It’s been an incredibly popular change, improved the teaching, and also been a great chance for residents to get together with their whole class and see people out of the ORs!

We know choosing where to spend your next several years of training is a daunting task. We hope we've offered a small glimpse into our residency and how it's been built to make you the best clinician and leader you want to be. Please never hesitate to reach out, and we can't wait to meet you during the application season!

Sincerely,

BARB

Aaron Brown, Eric Aksu, Jose Rios, and Andrew Bartuska

Stanford Anesthesiology Chief Residents 2025-2026