Community service isn't an easy or obvious fit for anesthesiologists. Our natural habitat is the OR or ICU. But many of us do feel a need to give something back to our communities. The question is, how to do it?
Back in 2016, the California Society of Anesthesiologists (CSA) decided to tackle this question in earnest. We were fortunate that our Executive Director, David Butler, had previous experience working with a national nonprofit organization called Project Lead the Way (PLTW), a creator of innovative, project-based STEM curricula for K-12 classrooms. One PLTW pathway is biomedical science for high school students.
Who could be better than anesthesiology residents to talk with students about biomedical science? Within the next year, residents from UCLA's Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine started visiting classrooms at three area high schools that offer the PLTW biomedical curriculum, bringing with them intubation mannikins, laryngoscopes, and a zest...
