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 the Houston Metropolitan Area. Its state-of-the-art facilities include and 837-bed acute care hospital and a 120-bed long term care pavilion. This regional referral center 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 education program emphasizes geriatric anesthesia and, in particular, anesthetic care for open-heart, 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 students with extensive experience in postoperative critical care. The faculty conduct didactic lectures, morbidity and mortality conferences and daily case discussions.