Scientific research has been the primary guide regarding my career choice. Curiosity that extends past our textbooks and other didactic material will reveal invaluable information about how the specialty operates, how clinical research is practiced and the common pitfalls encountered, and how exerts in the field communicate with each other about their innovative findings. Through my research experiences during medical school, I was exposed to the reality of perioperative clinical encounters and realized that I would be the strongest patient advocate through a career in anesthesiology.
We used Lean and Six Sigma techniques to improve perioperative workflow for patients with epidurals, leading to an increase in the number of epidural infusions started in the operating room. This was associated with a concurrent decrease in opioid use that could be attributed to multiple initiatives taking place at UW at the same time.
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I hope that continuous quality improvement (CQI) techniques such as these provides more tools for anesthesiologists to combat the #opioidepidemic #opioidcrisis, much of it being born out of chronic pain and opioid use after and in-between surgeries.
But more importantly, a call of encouragement for academicians in the private practice field who want use to continue to publish and push their fields forward in settings where evidence-based practices aren't necessarily the norm.
Aalap Shah, MD, is a board certified anesthesiologist, specializing in general adult and pediatric anesthesiology.
