The University of Pennsylvania’s regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine fellowship is a year-long post-graduate training program aimed to cultivate the expertise in the art, theory, and practical delivery of regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine. Our fellowship is currently non-ACGME accredited, but there are plans of making it ACGME accredited.

Our institution has two primary hospitals (Penn Presbyterian Medical Center – our level 1 trauma center – and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania) and a free standing ambulatory surgical center (Penn Medicine University City), situated in the urban setting of Philadelphia, in the University City neighborhood. We perform approximately 450 blocks/month (~5400 blocks/year) with a healthy mix of single-shot peripheral nerve blocks, truncal blocks, continuous catheter nerve blocks, and neuraxial analgesic blocks/catheters. We routinely provide regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine services to a variety of surgical specialties including orthopedics, trauma, podiatry, plastics, breast, cardiac, vascular, colorectal, general surgery, gynecology, transplant, and ambulatory surgeries. We also have a dedicated acute pain service that manages continuous nerve block catheters, epidural catheters, acute pain medication management, and complex acute on chronic pain medication management.

We have a core group of dedicated regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine attending anesthesiologists who will be providing education throughout the year. Your education includes hands-on training in ultrasound guided peripheral nerve blocks, management of peripheral nerve continuous catheters, neuraxial anesthesia/analgesia, and multimodal pharmacological therapies for postoperative pain management. There are dedicated monthly lectures geared towards advanced regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine topics for our fellow, along with routine, weekly lectures given for anesthesia residents who rotate on their regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine rotation. These lectures are round table discussions or hands on training sessions with the core regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine attendings to help solidify knowledge and gain expertise in this field. Journal clubs are held throughout the year to discuss the latest evidence in the field of regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine. Finally, you will be required to pick a topic of interest in the earlier portion of your fellowship year, to perform a quality improvement project. This will be a great opportunity to gain proficiency in using systematic, data-guided initiatives to improve clinical care, patient safety, or health care operations related to the field of regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine.

As this fellowship is currently non-ACGME accredited, this fellowship currently incorporates a part-time clinical instructorship with the responsibility of supervising residents and CRNA’s in the operating room setting.

At the end of your year, you will be very well trained in the field of regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine, and we are confident that you will succeed in your career whether it is in the academic or private sector. 

If interested, please apply to our program. We look forward to meeting you! 

 

 

This program currently participates in the SF Match for the 2025-2026 year.