Two NorthStar Anesthesia affiliate hospitals are upgrading residency education by teaching the business side of medicine.
NorthStar has been affiliated with anesthesiology programs at Detroit Medical Center since 2015 and Corewell East William Beaumont University Hospital in Royal Oak since 2021. Once taking over the residency programs, they realized there was a gap between resident knowledge and the skills needed in the field.
"[Residents] have to have clinically solid knowledge and they need really great work ethics," Romeo Kaddoum, MD, NorthStar's senior vice president of physician services, told Becker's. "But we need to start exposing them to the challenges that they're going to face once they hit the market."
Once NorthStar residents become third years, they spend a month or two on a "board runner rotation." On that rotation, residents get to be anesthesiologists for the day — doing everything from addressing codes and emergencies, coordinating cases and room schedules with OR administrators and handling other administrative tasks.
"[Residents] get exposed to things that they traditionally aren't trained in," Dr. Kaddoum said. "I never got that opportunity when I trained. I had to learn it the hard way over the years, so this is where our residents learn skills that help the hospitals and the overall healthcare industry."
The hospitals recently accepted a total of 18 anesthesiology residents to their programs, and Corewell is trying to add three spots.
"We need to be part of the solution. We can no longer go to work every morning and say, 'I'm going to take care of my patients; everything else is not my problem," Dr. Kaddoum said. "Well, it's not your problem until it is. So we have to be part of the solution."