Michael E. Debakey
Veterans Affairs Medical Center
The Veterans Affairs Medical Center serves as the primary health care provider for more than 50,000 veterans in Southeast Texas. This state-of-the-art facility is a regional referral center that provides specialized diagnosis and treatment and has a full range of inpatient and outpatient services.
Approximately 5,000 anesthetics are performed each year in twelve operating rooms.
The training program emphasizes geriatric anesthesia and, in particular, anesthetic care for open-heart surgery; with training in intra-operative echo-cardiography; major vascular, thoracic, urologic, neurologic, orthopedic, ENT, eye, and plastic procedures. The Anesthesiology Service further provides anesthesia outside the operating rooms for electroconvulsive therapy, cardioversion and special radiologic procedures. The modern 18-bed PACU and the 16-bed SICU provide the residents with extensive experience in postoperative critical care. The faculty conducts didactic lectures, morbidity and mortality conferences, transesophageal echocardiography conference, and daily case discussions.