During their training, fellows will have the opportunity to participate in numerous lectures, didactic ultrasound sessions, journal clubs and online learning modules. They will have the opportunity to teach and mentor medical students, as well as junior and senior residents. This gives the fellows ample opportunity to prepare for the teaching demands inherent in a career in academia or private practice.

They will have approximately one day a week to focus on research projects related to topics involving acute pain medicine. The goal of this allotted time will be to produce a publication or poster presentation that may be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal or presented at a national meeting.

The fellow will be hired at the usual University of Florida PGY-5 salary, which in 2016-17 was about $60,000. As stated above they will work 4 days a week with the acute pain medicine team progressing towards management of the service under the direction of acute pain medicine faculty. They will receive three weeks of vacation as well as time to present at meetings and conferences and a book fund. We are actively working to get our fellowship ACGME accredited and are pursuing avenues to get fellows exposure to pediatric and outpatient chronic pain management experiences.

Goals and Objectives

In addition to fracture surgery, fellows use upper and lower-extremity blocks in caring for patients receiving sports medicine, hand and wrist and orthopedic oncology procedures, joint replacements, open vascular procedures and podiatry cases.

Fellows are also well-versed in the placement of neuraxial and paravertebral techniques for both orthopedic and general-surgery procedures. Thoracic epidurals are frequently placed for rib fractures, open-abdominal cases and thoracic procedures, while ultrasound and landmark-based thoracic and lumbar paravertebrals are employed for breast and hip cases, respectively.

The merits and drawbacks of regional with sedation verses general anesthesia are also examined extensively during the training. Additionally, fellows will spend some time working with the chronic pain facility. During this time, they will master opiate titration and learn how to manage patients with acute-on-chronic pain by seeing in-hospital consults and spending time in the pain clinic.

Leadership and communication skills will be honed as well. Fellows will be responsible for coordinating care with the surgical team, operating and perioperative nursing staff and other anesthesia providers to ensure that safe and effective procedures are completed in a timely manner. They work with the regional attending of the day and ARNP to see consults and manage pain catheters on the floor. These activities allow them to evaluate their own performance while mastering concepts of multimodal perioperative pain management. By the end of their training, fellows will be in a position to develop and manage an acute pain service either in an academic or private-practice setting.

Research

Active participation in research is highly encouraged. Fellows have the opportunity to participate in ongoing research projects while encouraged to initiate their own scholarly ideas. In-depth guidance and counseling are provided by faculty well-versed in the area of research. Training spans the spectrum from constructing study protocols, to enrolling patients, to gathering and analyzing data, to writing abstracts and manuscripts.

The University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville encourages resident/fellow research through the availability of Dean’s Fund Research Awards and an annual Research Day, with residents and fellows from all disciplines presenting their work. Well-designed studies conducted in collaboration with the faculty have resulted in residents and fellows presenting their research at regional, national and international meetings.