Typical OR day as a resident at UF Health Jacksonville

• ~6:30 a.m.: Arrive at hospital, set up OR, and see my patient
• 7:30 a.m.: First case starts; Transport patient to OR, administer anesthetic under supervision of attending anesthesiologist, airway management and often additional procedures (second IV, arterial line, central line, etc).
• ~9:30 a.m.: Short morning break
• ~12:00 p.m.: Lunch break
• ~4:00 p.m.: Relief from the OR begins; look up patients for the next day, discuss plans with the attending, and go home!

Meet Some of Our Residents

Sounak Roy, MD - PGY-3 (CA-2), Chief Resident 2025-2026

What is your favorite aspect of the program?

"My favorite part of the year is Orientation because most of the residency program comes together as a team. Senior residents teach and supervise their juniors in the OR, and through resident-led lectures and simulations, seniors are able to help juniors develop their clinical skills while testing their own knowledge. As a senior, I am paired with an intern for a week at a time and assigned ‘bread and butter’ cases in the main OR. My goal is to coach the intern to develop their own strategies when formulating and carrying out an anesthetic plan, setting up the OR, examining and consenting patients, troubleshooting, and managing anesthetic emergencies. Every day at 3 p.m., interns and a senior resident are relieved from the OR to participate in classroom-style lectures. Senior residents review key chapters from Baby Miller with interns, engaging in active discussions and sharing important clinical pearls from attendings that bridge textbook concepts with practical applications. By the end of orientation, I should be providing high-level supervision of my assigned intern, and all the chapters in Baby Miller will have been reviewed in lectures. The orientation period is interspersed with bonding social activities, including a celebration funded by our attendings at the end of orientation to mark the entry of our newly minted anesthesia residents. Moreover, I find it wonderful to watch my junior colleagues become more independent and confident."

"After work, I enjoy spending time with my wife, visiting our families in Charleston on weekends, and practicing pickleball, tennis, and horse-riding. In the evenings, I enjoy going for walks, dining out on weekends, and socializing with the program whenever we're all free."

Sydney Shaouy, MD - PGY-3 (CA-2), Chief Resident 2025-2026

What is the strongest aspect of the program?

"The strongest aspect of our program is how our regular OR time is interspersed with other rotations that broaden our appreciation for anesthetic care beyond the patient’s hand-off to the PACU. Rotating in the surgical intensive care unit once a year allows me to manage our patients post-operatively and see how our anesthetic management plays a role in their recovery for the longer-term. In the ICU, we also play a significant role in optimizing patients pre-operatively to ensure they are safe to undergo the stress of surgery and anesthesia. After working many weeks on the acute pain service performing nerve blocks for orthopedic, breast, abdominal, and thoracic surgeries, I have also become confident in making recommendations for pain control while caring for our patients post-operatively. Although we care for young patients less often than we do adults at the main hospital, after performing anesthetics for pediatrics at Wolfson’s Children’s Hospital, I do feel well-equipped to care for our younger friends who sometimes come into our care. When I switch over to our obstetrics service to provide neuraxial anesthesia and emotional support to our pregnant patients, I find satisfaction in helping our patients get through the pain of their deliveries, and I have become more confident in my ability to handle extremely complex cases, all while having the opportunity to teach junior residents. Rotating through consult services such as pulmonology and cardiology allows me to understand indications for pre-operative work ups and optimization. We even get to do a short rotation in the blood bank where we gain an appreciation for how blood products are processed, learn best practices for transfusion, and practice reading TEGs. Eventually, I will even get to meet more of our colleagues at Mayo Clinic where I will learn about neuro anesthesia and transplant anesthesia. In short, I love that our integrated program allows us to get involved with each of the major services and that as we progress in our training, we get to say hello to the friends we have made in internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics, and more."

"When I am not at work, I love spending time with my husband, daughter, and two dogs, going paddleboarding on the river near my home, beating my husband at sporting clay shooting, listening to the bagpipes, playing drums, shopping at Target for no reason, and attending sporting events / dining out with my coresidents."

Why We Love UF Health Jacksonville

The Anesthesiology Residency at UF Health Jacksonville is uniquely dedicated to the learning and well-being of its residents. We believe this program is one of the best in the nation for several reasons:

1. Jacksonville

Jacksonville is a large city with all the shops and restaurants you could hope for, complemented by beautiful beaches like Ponte Vedra Beach, Jax Beach, Neptune Beach, and Atlantic Beach. The city's expansive layout allows each area to be a self-sustaining, contained neighborhood with a small-city feel within a large metropolitan area. Our residents have many neighborhoods to choose from, each with its own distinctive vibe. Neighborhoods to explore include Riverside, Avondale, San Marco, San Jose, Mandarin, St. Johns Town Center, Orange Park, Springfield, and Saint Augustine; whether you’re looking for a new-build or a historic home maintained by the city’s preservation society, Jacksonville has a lot to offer.

2. Small Program Size

Having a small program allows for a tight-knit group of residents, and we feel that we know everyone quite well. This fosters close relationships with attendings, leading to more trust and autonomy in the OR. Additionally, our program is complemented by a large team of Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) and Certified Anesthesia Assistants (CAAs) who assist in the OR. Their support enables residents to focus more on learning and developing clinical skills, enhancing the overall educational experience.

3. Curriculum

The intern (PGY-1) class starts anesthesia orientation in February, which means there are only seven months of off-service rotations prior to beginning anesthesia training. This does not exempt us from completing all the necessary off-service rotations but allows them to be placed later in training after spending significant time administering anesthesia. We find that this enables us to better conceptualize the anesthetic considerations of the off-service specialties (e.g., cardiology, OMFS).

4. Level 1 Trauma

Our hospital is the only Level 1 trauma center for Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia; the closest other Level 1 trauma center is in Gainesville, approximately two hours away by car. We have become highly adept at managing blunt force and penetrating trauma patients requiring emergent surgery and resuscitation. Additionally, we are the largest acute-care OB facility in the metro area, allowing us to encounter some of the rarest pathologies.

5. Partner Hospitals

All of our clinical sites are in Jacksonville and provide excellent experiences in various subspecialties. Working in different facilities helps us become more adaptable when in unfamiliar settings. Wolfson Children's Hospital is where we complete our pediatric anesthesia rotations and is a top-ranked pediatric hospital according to U.S. News & World Report and Leapfrog. We complete rotations in neuro-anesthesia and transplant at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, which performs a high volume of intracranial surgeries as well as heart, lung, liver, and kidney transplants.

6. Academic Wednesday

All non-clinical education is conducted on Wednesdays when we usually do not have any clinical responsibilities. Activities include grand rounds, lectures by faculty, keyword presentations by residents, and often a workshop or simulation. These days offer time to work on quality improvement or research projects, allow for independent study, or to attend personal appointments.

7. Moonlighting

After receiving a passing score on the ABA Basic Examination, residents in good academic standing are permitted to sign up for weekend moonlighting in our Main OR. Moonlighting shifts are approximately 12-hours.