Ben Taub General Hospital
Baylor College of Medicine provides the professional staff for Ben Taub General Hospital, one of two major public hospitals in Harris County. Ben Taub is a 578-bed acute care teaching facility providing care for injured and indigent residents of Harris County. The hospital has several specialty intensive care units, including Medicine, Surgery, Coronary Care, Pediatrics, Neurology/Neurosurgery and a Wound Unit. There is a wide variety of ambulatory care clinics and a complete array of diagnostic services and treatment facilities.
The Department of Anesthesiology is well represented at Ben Taub and is responsible for operating and staffing the entire anesthesia service. The Anesthesiology Service is divided into two functional divisions, a General Operating Room and an Obstetrical/Gynecology unit.
General Operating Room
Perioperative anesthesia care is provided for about 8,000 patients every year. Full-time faculty anesthesiologists provide around-the-clock instruction and supervision in ten operating rooms, one Cystoscopy suite, the Pre- and Post-Anesthesia Care Units, the Ambulatory Day Surgery Unit, and the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Special training is provided in the management of anesthesia in locations remote from the operating room, including the Arteriography, CAT scan and MRI suites, the cardiac catheterization lab, and the intensive care units.
Weekly conferences are resident-oriented and cover selected topics. A periodic morbidity and mortality conference provides and opportunity for constructive peer review of patient care activities. Guest lecturers complement the didactic program.
Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Perinatal Anesthesiology
The obstetrical service at Ben Taub performs about 6,000 deliveries each year; 40 percent of these cases are high-risk pregnancies. Approximately half of all parturients admitted to the labor and delivery unit require an anesthetic intervention. Care for critically-ill obstetric patients is provided through the collaborative efforts of the obstetricians and anesthesiologists in the Obstetric Special Care Unit. In addition to obstetric cases, anesthetic care is also provided for elective and emergency benign gynecology and neonatal surgical procedures.
The faculty anesthesiologist in this division have specialized fellowship training in obstetrical anesthesia and supervise all clinical, teaching and research activities of the service. A recurring three-month cycle of didactic lectures covers a wide range of topics. Case management, morbidity/mortality and high risk conferences are held each month, often in conjunction with the Obstetrics Service.
Each year, this service organizes and presents the Texas Anesthesia Conference for Obstetrics (TACO) and a Difficult Airway Workshop. Additionally, the Obstetrical Anesthesia Division has a long tradition of research productivity. Fellows/Faculty have been recipients of the prestigious Gertie Marx Award.
In 2001, a mandatory airway rotation was implemented. The obstetric anesthesia faculty teach advanced airway management skills to CA1 residents in the benign GYN operating room. Additionally, other airway management techniques (i.e., retrograde intubation, transtracheal jet ventilation and cricothyroidotomy) are taught on mannequins in the animal laboratory.