The anesthesia residency program in Guyana began in 2013 at Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). It was born from a partnership between McMaster University department of anesthesia and the Institute for Health Science Education (IHSE, the postgraduate medical training arm of the University of Guyana).
During the early development process, Dr. Alexandra Harvey, the anesthesia program director, requested volunteer faculty to assist with delivering academic and clinical training. This is when CASIEF began to be involved. In October 2015, the American Society of Anesthesiologists Global Health Outreach committee (ASAGHO) was invited to become part of the developing partnership in Guyana. The first CASIEF and ASAGHO volunteers travelled to Guyana in late 2016. The volunteers have provided academic and clinical teaching that would fit into their existing curriculum. Currently, CASIEF and ASAGHO have been working together to continue teaching remotely during the pandemic. We have also been assisting in other areas including curriculum review as well as the creation of fellowship opportunities (with hopes of the first regional fellow beginning in 2022).
Currently there are two streams of training physician anesthesiologists in Guyana with a total of 12 residents enrolled:
The scope of practice for physicians with this level of training is to provide anesthesia care in smaller regional and district hospitals.
This degree requires an additional 2 years of subspecialty training, of which four months is spent in Canada (either McMaster University or the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, NOSM) where residents get broader exposure to subspecialty anesthesia care.
Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society
International Education Foundation
455 Danforth Ave, Unit 469
Toronto, ON Canada
M4K 1P1
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