“The show must go on”: Aftermath of Covid-19 on anesthesiology residency programs

Abstract

COVID-19 has caused tectonic changes in the personal and professional lives of anesthesiologists and, among several aspects, anesthesiology residency and sub-specialty training has also undergone an unforeseen overhaul. We read the articles published on the impact of COVID-19 on training of anesthesiologists and set out to extract and narrate all the significant observations. At the outset, we begin by explaining how this pandemic posed a threat to the safety of the residents and mitigating measures like PPE and barriers that have now become 'the new normal'. Sub-specialties like critical care, cardiac anesthesia, pain and palliative care have also faced difficulty in imparting training due to an initial dearth in elective surgery case load but have adapted innovative measures to overcome that. Initially, conducting thesis and research became difficult due to problems in achieving the desires sample size needed to get significant results, but this pandemic has emerged as a dynamic laboratory where topics like 'psychological impact of COVID-19' and 'development of artificial intelligence models in COVID -19 ICUs' came into the fore. Pattern of examination has also become virtual and webinars showed how knowledge, with the right medium, has the potential of global outreach. As the pandemic took a toll on the mental health of the residents, attention was paid to this previously neglected aspect and ensuring their emotional well-being became a priority to avoid the issue of burn-out. We comment on how what initially was considered a scary problem, actually paved way for growth. It brought attention to safety, innovation, new tools for training, finding solutions within constraints, continuing developing our residents into future leaders who were also trained for mitigating disasters. Changes like online education, research on socio-economic impact, priority to mental health and artificial intelligence are here to stay and by imbibing it, we ensure that 'the show must go on'.

Keywords

• academic
• anesthesia
• burnout
• covid-19
• resident training