DAPM Faculty at Grand Rounds: Montefiore-Einstein, Wake Forest, BIDMC

We are midway through October and our department has already had a number of faculty members featured as Grand Rounds presenters at several health centers in the past few weeks. Read on for rundowns of the presentations by Drs. Higgins, Lee, and Lucero!

K. Elliot Higgins III, MD: "Short Acting Spinals"

Presented at Montefiore-Einstein Anesthesiology on September 30, 2022

Dr. Higgins's talk was on short acting spinals and evidence for optimizing ambulatory management. He goes over the main local anesthetics that can be used for ambulatory surgical patients, the evidence for dosing and kinetics for guaranteeing ambulatory management, adjuncts (which to use, which to avoid) and common issues such as post operative urinary retention.

Lisa Lee, MD: "Machine Learning in Anesthesiology: Promises and Pitfalls"

Presented at Wake Forest Anesthesiology on October 12, 2022

In this presentation, Dr. Lee went over the 4 classes of machine learning: Supervised Learning, Unsupervised Learning, Semi-supervised Learning and Reinforcement Learning, the types of problems or questions they are used to address and an example technique within each of these classes: Logistic regression, Autoencoders, Neural Networks for Image Analysis and Generalized Adversarial Networks. For each of these, she gave examples of how they are used in everyday life and in anesthesia research. Dr. Lee also introduced the concept of adversarial attacks on neural networks. For supervised learning, she described some of her experiences with troubleshooting challenges with the data structure and coding.

Jennifer Lucero, MD, MA: "Aversive Racism in Medicine and the Impact of Diversifying the Physician Workforce"

Presented at BIDMC Anesthesia on October 13, 2022

The talk by Dr. Lucero covered the need to provide a diverse workforce to care for our diverse communities, in particular those who are experiencing health disparities. She gives context to public mistrust of the health system by referencing the history behind the treatment of these communities by the healthcare system. Her presentation covered interpersonal social psychology concepts, aversive racism, in-group bias, and stereotype threat and the way it impacts our ability to diversify our workforce and increase diversity within the leadership of academic medicine.