Clinical Care Settings and Rotation Structure

Our residents receive a comprehensive educational experience that is made to ensure acquisition of the skills, knowledge, and judgment necessary to be exemplary leaders in anesthesiology.  

Our residency is a four-year categorical program inclusive of the Clinical Base Year (CBY). Training is divided into 13 four-week blocks in the CBY through CA-3. 

Residents rotate through our Brighton Specialty Health Center, Back and Pain Center at Burlington, East Ann Arbor Surgical Center, Michigan Medicine Hospital as well as the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Hospital with the opportunity to do electives at our affiliated Community partnership with St. Joseph Mercy Hospital of Ann Arbor. 

Leadership, with the consultation of current residents, has also restructured the flow of the program to introduce residents to vital subspecialty rotations earlier in their training (during CA-1 year). This aids resident security and comfort in their clinical practice earlier, exposes them to subspecialties earlier progressing towards fellowship, and progresses the program toward competency-based rotations, an active goal within anesthesiology training at-large. It also provides our program the ability to customize and tailor training and electives to better suit individual pursuits and needs later in training. 

Clinical Base Year (CBY – Intern Year)

Our intern year consists of a comprehensive, robust curriculum focusing on critical care medicine, surgical and medical specialties, emergency medicine, pain medicine, and research. Learn more about the Intern Year experience.

CA-1 Year (PGY-2)

CA-1 residents are assigned mostly to the adult hospital where they spend six to seven months learning the anesthetics for general surgery, plastics, otolaryngology, oncology, and orthopedics. CA-1 residents also perform rotations in pediatric anesthesia, obstetric anesthesia, surgical ICU, ambulatory surgery at a free-standing facility, and two-week rotations in the preop clinic, PACU, cardiac anesthesia, electroconvulsive therapy anesthesia, and acute pain service/regional anesthesia. 

CA-2 Year (PGY-3)

CA-2 residents primarily rotate in anesthesia subspecialties for 4-week blocks, including pediatrics, obstetrics, neuroanesthesia, cardiac, thoracic, vascular, regional anesthesia and acute pain management and outpatient chronic pain clinic. Additional rotations include non-operating room anesthesia (NORA) experience (primarily interventional radiology), cardiovascular intensive care unit (CVC-ICU), and transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). Liver transplantation is prioritized to CA-2s during case allocation. 

CA-3 Year (PGY-4) 

CA-3 residents primarily perform advanced subspecialty rotations, including pediatrics, obstetrics, neuroanesthesia, cardiac, regional anesthesia, ambulatory anesthesia (assume a sub-staffing role to support transition to independent practice). Additional rotations include the non-operating room anesthesia (NORA) experience (primarily endoscopies and bronchoscopies), CVC-ICU, and 2-week electives.

You can read more about our experience and expectations in the Day in the Life of a Resident section.