Clinical
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Co-Directors:
Dr Scott Bell
Dr Steve Head
Members:
Dr Alex Klimek
Dr Bobby Lee
Dr Lisa Li
Dr Trina Montemurro
Dr Jill Osborn
Dr Steven Petrar (Fellow and Resident Co-ordinator)
Dr Chris Prabhakar (Preceptorship Director)
Dr Ron Ree
Dr Stephan Schwarz (Research Director)
Dr Cynthia Yarnold
Introduction:
St. Paul’s Hospital is a tertiary care teaching hospital serving British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. The regional anesthesia group at St Paul’s hospital is very active clinically, academically, and with resident and fellow education. Our regional anesthesiologists are all skilled in the field of
ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia for both single injection and continuous techniques. Clinically, we operate two out-of-OR nerve block rooms: One block room, serving a mixed in-patient/out-patient population, serves the main operating room1, while the other block room serves two specially designed and highly efficient ambulatory “swing” operating rooms2. Here, peripheral nerve blockade is used to provide surgical anesthesia for upper and lower limb procedures performed sequentially by a single surgical team, and with minimal turnover time between cases.
At St Paul’s Hospital, we perform more than 2500 single injection peripheral nerve blocks annually, including interscalene, supraclavicular,
infraclavicular, axillary, popliteal-sciatic, sapheneous, TAP, and paraverterbral blocks. In addition we place approximately 400 in-patient
perineural catheters annually. In 2012 we began a home peri-neural catheter program, in which ambulatory patients are discharged home with a
perineural catheter in situ, as well as with an infusion of local anesthesia supplied by a portable, disposable pump. In addition to our busy clinical practice, we are also active in the field of resident and fellow education. In 2009 we began what has become a very popular resident rotation in regional anesthesia, and in 2011 we developed a dedicated regional anesthesia fellowship. Since 2011 we have had 7 fellows complete their training with us. For further information regarding our regional anesthesia fellowship at St. Paul’s Hospital, please contact Dr. Steven Petrar (anesthesiafellowships@gmail.com).
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