Acute Pain Medicine
and Regional Anesthesia
(APM & RA)
André P. Boezaart, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, APM & RA Fellowship Program
Dear Applicant:
Thank you very much for your interest in our Acute Pain Management & Regional Anesthesia (APM & RA) Fellowship Program. We certainly welcome all qualified applicants to apply for this fellowship position.
Our Division offers a focused and comprehensive 12-month APM & RA training program for our fellows. We have set up a strong curriculum to meet the fellow’s APM & RA training requirements. We generally follow the American Society of Regional Anesthesiologist guideline (http://www.asra.com/education/regional-fellowships.html), but since this is not an ACGME-accredited fellowship, we freely adapt these guidelines to suit the specific individual needs of the fellow and the institution.
Apart from training fellows to become true consultants, we also emphasize research, and our fellows are expected to complete at least one research project and present the work at a national or international meeting and eventually publish the work. We provide ample academic time for this, and some previous fellows have written chapters in well-known textbooks. To prepare fellows in the critical reading of other research, we formally introduce them into the process of evaluating manuscripts presented to peer-reviewed journals for publication. (We are not involved in the treatment of Chronic Pain Syndromes, but we do consult with patients with Cancer Pain and Acute Pain situations due to Chronic Pain Syndromes).
By the end of your fellowship year at the University of Florida, you should at least have the following skills:
1. Be a true consultant in APM & RA. That would mean amongst other:
a. Optimally treat any form of acute pain especially peri-operative pain
b. Teach, “trouble-shoot” and “rescue” blocks
c. Fully understand indications, risks, etc. of nerve blocks, when not to do blocks and how to stay out of trouble
d. Be fully equipped to use nerve stimulators and ultrasound to place single-injection and continuous nerve blocks as well as all neuraxial and paravertebral blocks
e. Set up and manage an in/and outpatient APM & RA service
2. Be an expert in Anesthetic Anatomy
Consult with industry to develop new APM & RA equipment
4. Critically read and evaluate manuscripts submitted for publication
5. Design, conduct and publish an APM & RA research study
6. Understand the peri-operative surgical issues of most surgical procedures.
Fellows rotate through ultrasonography, peripheral nerve neurology and anatomy, if they so choose and all this training take place in the very collegial and pleasant atmosphere of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Florida, the famous Gator Nation. Training is centered at the Shands Hospital, Florida Surgical Center, Alachua General Hospital, and soon-to-open Cancer Tower.
We have been approved to appoint three Fellow/Associates for 2009/10. Our fellows will have to be qualified to be appointed as Fellow/Associates, meaning that they will have to be qualified to receive hospital privileges in order to work 20% of their time as regular Anesthesiology faculty, obviously focusing on APM, RA and Orthopaedic Anesthesia. This allows us to ease fellows into the consultant role and it also allows us to offer Fellow/Associates a much more competitive salary and vastly improving their benefit and leave package.
This fellowship position currently requires an active Florida medical license. We suggest that you view the website for information on applying for this license. The website link is http://www.fmaonline.org/phys/license.asp. We can accept international students who have H1 visa and can obtain Florida medical license.
The fellowship position at the University of Florida is heavily contested, and we have an abundance of very dedicated and well-trained faculty that oversees the fellowship training here in Gainesville. I therefore urge you to send your application as early as possible to the address below, so we can arrange for an interview.
Deadline to receive your application is end of August, 2008. Once we have reviewed all the applications, a decision to invite selected applicants for an interview will be made. Interviews of selected candidates will take place in September and October, 2008, and we will finalize the fellowship appointments by mid November, 2008.
If you have additional questions, you are welcome to contact me at Aboezaart@anest.ufl.edu, the Associate Fellowship Director Dr. Clint Elliott at Celliott@anest.ufl.edu, or our Fellowship Program Coordinator Ms. Vatsala Desai, at Vdesai@anest.ufl.edu.
Kind Regards,
André P. Boezaart M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Anesthesia and Orthopaedic Surgery
Department of Anesthesiology
Director Acute Pain Medicine and Regional Anesthesia
Director APM & RA Fellowship Program
University of Florida College of Medicine
P. O. Box 100254
1600 SW Archer Road (Courier delivery)
Gainesville, FL 32610
Office: (352) 846-0913
