Program Overview

The Anesthesiology residency program at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine is structured to prepare physicians for careers as consultants in anesthesiology, in either academic medicine or private practice.  Residents learn far more than safe techniques for anesthetic administration.  They acquire the judgment and skills needed to care for complex patients and interact with physicians and other health care providers to ensure excellent care of patients in and outside the operating room environment.

The residency program offers both a standard three-year curriculum and an innovative four-year curriculum.  Therefore, residents have the option to either complete their clinical base rotations here or at another hospital of their choosing.

With the three-year program, residents join our residency after completion of their clinical base year. This can be completed in any primary care specialty, surgery, or as a transitional year.  Upon joining our department the residents will rotate through the rotations shown in the chart below.

We are very enthusiastic about our innovative integrated 4-year curriculum.  It is innovative, as it is one of the few four-year programs in the country that integrates the clinical base rotations throughout the first 3 years of residency training.  This approach is now becoming increasingly popular among other programs. We were one of the first to implement this continuum. ACGME requirements are all followed for these rotations.  We have selected rotations that will contribute to the experience and body of knowledge necessary to maximize the residents’ education in becoming superior consultants of anesthesiology.  Rotations increase in complexity as the resident increases in experience in both the clinical base months and the anesthesiology months.   This allows the resident both to contribute more to each patient’s care and to gain more depth of knowledge from their experience on the rotation.   The yearly curriculum is shown in the chart below.