Welcome - Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship Program

Welcome to Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine (RAAPM) at Ochsner Medical Center. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive perioperative pain management experience that can be applied to many different clinical settings. Our fellowship provides a one-year experience in mastering ultrasound, regional techniques, as well as perioperative and acute on chronic pain management. Our faculty consists of RAAPM fellowship trained Anesthesiologists who are dedicated to the program.

You will see that we provide a unique experience because our group covers patients at tertiary care centers as well as an ambulatory surgery center. The regional attendings come from different clinical backgrounds and have been able to take outstanding care of medically complicated patients.

At our main campus, we are able to provide an extensive array of blocks such as truncal (ESP and Paravertebral), neuraxial, head and neck, upper and lower extremity, and some pediatric. We use these blocks as either the primary anesthetic or for post-operative pain management. We place either single shots or catheters. Our catheter patients are seen or called daily by our inpatient rounding team.

Our ambulatory surgery center is located in the Elmwood area (a 10 minute drive from main campus). It offers a fast turnover, highly efficient and exhilarating experience. We primarily care for orthopedic patients; however, we are also responsible for the management of breast, urology, some general surgery, and podiatry patients. We place many catheters and perform many single shots at Elmwood.

Additionally, we have a Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) program for our total joint arthroplasty patients. This team consists of one of the RAAPM staff, a resident/fellow and a nurse. With our guidance of patients through the perioperative process, we have been able to both reduce length of stay and increase patient satisfaction.

As an ACGME accredited fellowship program, our fellows spend 5 days a week with the RAAPM team. This includes time with the regional, acute pain (APS), PSH, and the chronic pain services. We are dedicated to research and quality improvement and have dedicated time set aside for academic endeavors.

Goals of training include:

• Pre-op evaluation and management of acute pain, including indications and contraindications for interventional pain management techniques
• Intra-op application of multi-modal analgesia, including regional anesthesia
• Post-op application of regional analgesia in inpatients and outpatients
• Peri-op multimodal acute pain management of surgical patients
• Acute pain management of hospitalized non-surgical patients