Education Committee Update Volume 35 Issue 4
As the New Year dawns upon us, the Education Committee would like to announce some exciting changes to the committee structure, as well as highlight some of the new offerings for the New Year. After the immensely successful integration of the SOCCA and IARS annual meetings in 2024, where we were able to incorporate three days’ worth of critical care content along with a POCUS workshop, we are happy to share that the same model will be in place for the 2025 Annual Meeting in Hawaii. The Annual Meeting subcommittee had a monumentous task of choosing educational content from the multiple proposals that they received and we are certain that the SOCCA membership will be very pleased with the critical care content at the 2025 Annual Meeting as well. The Annual Meeting subcommittee will continue their work with the grading of various critical care related abstracts, and we would like to request all members to consider submitting session proposals for the IARS/SOCCA Annual Meeting in Montreal in 2026.
The Board Review course has had another successful year. The Board Review subcommittee under the leadership of Drs. Talia Ben-Jacob and Satyapriya put on a two-session review course in late September which was very well attended. We are excited to announce that there are plans in place to overhaul the Board Review Course for 2025, and we will likely migrate to a live virtual format, wherein the content would be aired live, with panelists in attendance, to answer any questions that the audience may have. In addition, the sessions will be recorded, and the participants would have the option to access recorded content later at their convenience. The Board Review Subcommittee is working diligently to build a financial model for the Board Review course which in the past has been free, but with the new format would have a nominal fee to offset the operational expenses. The SOCCA Board Review course has been providing a high impact review of the most important topics to help our recently graduated fellows study for their Critical Care Boards, and with the new format, we are hopeful that it would be even more beneficial.
As in the past years, the Education Committee will continue to provide educational webinars to the SOCCA membership, and for 2025, the Webinar Subcommittee, under the leadership of Dr. Amit Prabhakar and Vice Chair, Dr. Javier Lorenzo is working with the SOCCA management company to provide CME credit for the webinar series. The goal is to provide four high quality educational webinars in 2025, with the option for SOCCA members to obtain CME credit free of cost for attending these webinars. We are eternally grateful for the expertise within SOCCA membership and appreciate all the speakers and moderators who have contributed to the astounding success of these webinars and continue to do so.
For the year 2025, the Education Committee is on track to launching some new education initiatives with the help of newly formed corresponding subcommittees. The Virtual Education Subcommittee, led by Dr. Anna Budde is working on creating a comprehensive virtual repository of resident didactics, and is partnering with OpenAnesthesia (an online peer-reviewed platform with educational content relating to the fields of anesthesiology, critical care, and peri-operative medicine), to create critical care related content and ensure anesthesia trainees around the world have access to essential information for board preparation as well as the practical information they need while caring for critically ill patients. Dr. Budde also serves as the Associate Editor of the Critical Care section of OpenAnesthesia. Discussions are also underway to work with “Anesthesia Toolbox”, an educational offering of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) to curate critical care education and curricular content for trainees. Currently, there is a significant gap in the educational content related to critical care being offered through these platforms, and this endeavor will provide an opportunity for SOCCA members to create high quality educational content related to critical care medicine for anesthesiology trainees.
Considering the lack of exam preparatory materials specific to the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) Critical Care Board Exam, a separate Question Bank subcommittee under the leadership of Dr. Emily Naoum has been formed. The Subcommittee has been tasked with the creation of a virtual question bank resource for fellows taking the ABA Critical Care Board Exam. We envision the SOCCA virtual Question Bank to be modeled on the recently launched virtual Question Bank by the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists (SCA), and discussions are underway with the SCA leadership, to seek their guidance and expertise in creating such a Question Bank, which would be the first (and only) specific resource for the ABA Critical Care Board Exam. In addition, the newly formed Journal Club Subcommittee, led by Drs. Aalok Katcha and Christopher Choi will be presenting Virtual Journal Club sessions, starting in February 2025. This will be a great opportunity for our fellows and junior faculty to present important research impacting clinical care and hear from experts within our organization
We would like to thank the SOCCA Board of Directors and the SOCCA membership for their unrelenting support and encouragement, as we embark on these educational endeavors in the coming year. All of this would not have been possible without the work of each and every member of the education committee, and we sincerely appreciate their enthusiasm and hard work. We would like to specially thank Ms. Jennifer Rzepka, for her help in making all these new educational offerings a reality. Lastly, we encourage anyone with interest in developing and creating new educational content for SOCCA to apply for Education Committee membership in the coming year. Happy New Year y’all!