Regional Anesthesia - How much are you doing?

Seems like peeps are responsing to the poll but not the thread it self so ill make a comment. Not really into clinical yet but orienting the OR and have witnessed the students doing a good bit of regional. Tons of epidurals and spinals as at the county hospital and our main clinical site there are about 650 babies delivered a month.

As well being a level one trauma center and academic hospital they arent so worried about turning over the room so quickly b/c the regular say lap appy or lap chole that takes a private practice guy 30 min may take a resident 3hrs. With this being the case the attending really like you to get as much regional experience as possible. If its your case you do the block. If you havent planned for a regional and the attending want to place a block just for postop pain mgmt a anesthesia resident that pretty much places blocks all day will place the block. Freq blocks include brachial plexus all diff. approaches, ankle blck, bier block, siatic and femoral blck, 3 in 1 block, tons of epidurals and spinals. So really just due the the fact that our main clinical experience is at an extremely busy county hospital and trauma center.

It is in my opinion that having great regional experience make you a more marketable anesthetist. It opens up more independent contractor possibilities as well as other job opportunities. Many new SRNA's even the ones that do a lot of region in school and go work for a MD group that resricts their practice for years will forget for the most part how to do the regional or at least not be as comfotable or proficient as those that do them frequently. Not sure though its just my opinion especially if your thinking about future rural practice opportunities.