ASA and the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ASRA) have recently created a joint educational product referred to as the Ultrasound-Guided Regional Anesthesia (UGRA) Education and Clinical Training Portfolio. The portfolio project was developed by a joint task force of ASA and ASRA members in response to a recent initiative of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM) to develop practice standards and training needs for neural imaging during ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia. In addition, ASA and ASRA leadership were receiving isolated feedback from society members that local hospitals and medical facilities were beginning to request validation of “competency” of anesthesiologists for local accreditation and privileging. In fact, some ASA members were being challenged within their local institutions that ultrasound guidance was not within their scope of practice.
In response to this feedback, the joint ASA-ASRA task force was charged with creating and distributing a survey to...
