Anesthesia and Thoracic Surgery

In our anesthesia and thoracic surgery rotations, which take place during your first year, you will interact with older cardiac patients who have considerable comorbidities. You will also encounter cases that have been transferred from other hospitals because of their challenging nature.

Supervised by an attending anesthesiologist, you will intubate patients and become familiar with all aspects of airway management.

You will see primarily cardiac surgery patients, allowing you to insert Swan Ganz catheters and interpret pulmonary arterial and wedge tracings.

You will also learn to interpret intraoperative cardiac echocardiography.

During this rotation, you will insert chest tubes, perform bronchoscopies and thoracentesis, all with the guidance of the attending thoraciac surgeon.

You will also have the opportunity to observe thoracic operative procedures.

You will spend two weeks at each site:

• 40 operative cases during the anesthesia rotation
• 40 or more cases during the thoracic surgery rotation

• Anesthesia rotation: 2 weeks at Erie County Medical Center
• Thoracic surgery rotation: 2 weeks at Buffalo General Medical Center