Conferences

Director’s Message

Thank you very much for visiting our website.

Nearly 10 years ago, I was playing with huge ultrasound machine of vascular department of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle to identify nerves. In those days, localizing nerves with ultrasound was unfamiliar to many including, sonologists and diagnostic radiologists. Seattle being headquarters for a portable ultrasound machine, I approached them lend a machine to me to explore the possibility of using ultrasound in regional anesthesia. I was not sure what to expect, but at the end of the day I was nothing short of amazed! At the same time, I started using stimulating catheters for nerve blocks which significantly improved the quality of analgesia with reduction in secondary failure.

With the encouragement and support of Dr. David Brown, my commitment, dedication and enthusiasm to practice acute pain management, teach ultrasound guided regional anesthesia grew tremendously. Having conducted several regional anesthesia workshops before, I started conducting ultrasound guided regional anesthesia workshops in MD Anderson Cancer Center under the mentorship of Dr. Brown. The faculty for the workshops consisted of an amalgam of international and national experts in this field. Having moved to The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, I am very fortunate to have full support and encouragement of our chairman Dr. Carin Hagberg to continue these educational activities.

The excitement of seeing nerves with ultrasound and teaching ultrasound techniques to our anesthesiology colleagues and residents is infectious. Keeping adult learners in mind, we developed unique techniques of teaching for each nerve block with simultaneous cadaver anatomy, surface land marks and conventional approaches of the nerve block, ultrasound guided technique, application of artistic images, MRI & CT images applicable to that nerve block. Finally, to make the learning experience the best, each participant of the workshop practice localizing nerves and vessels on human volunteers with ultrasound and use stimulating needles and stimulating catheters under ultrasound on live anesthetized pigs.

All of the eight ultrasound workshops I conducted at MD Anderson Cancer Center and The University of Texas Medical School at Houston in Houston were successful, with wonderful comments & reviews from the participants. Several of the participants who attended other workshops commented that the learning experience in our workshop is the best because of its unique teaching structure. Over the years this program has grown into a robust academic training program for ultrasound guided regional anesthesia and acute pain management.

I have received several invitations to conduct these workshops with similar structure and took up the challenge and trained several hundreds of anesthesiologists in Nepal, India and South America.

It is the invaluable expertise and enthusiasm of the teaching faculty with international and national reputation, which has contributed to the success of these workshops. The excellent reviews and compliments by the workshop participants from all over the country and abroad is one of the strong driving forces to continue these workshops. The mountainous task of coordinating multi screen, multimedia (4 projectors, 4 screens and 2 cameras) presentations on cadaver, adult human volunteer, pediatric volunteers, arrangements of equipment, food and drink is not possible without the strong dedicated workshop coordinators and CME department.

The University of Texas Medical School at Houston is an excellent place to conduct workshops in ultrasound guided regional anesthesia and acute pain management. I am excited that our successful, well received Hands-on Biannual Ultrasound Guided Regional Anesthesia Workshop is scheduled to be on July 28th (Saturday) & 29th (Sunday), 2012 at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. The structure of the workshop, teaching agenda will be identical to our previous workshops and UTHS has a brand new animal lab facility which is well equipped to accommodate 10 anesthetized pigs simultaneously and also has wonderful galleries for didactics, halls for human volunteer stations.

Hopefully your calendar avails you to participate in our July 28th (Saturday) & 29th (Sunday), 2012 workshop.

Received excellent reviews and comments by many workshop participants saying that our workshop is better than ASRA workshops.

Please do not hesitate to contact me or our workshop coordinator Jonetha Davidson if you have any questions.

Krishna Boddu
MBBS, MD, DNB, FANZCA
Professor, Department of Anesthesiology
Director, Acute Pain Medicine, Director, Pain Championship Program
The University of Texas Medical School at Houston &
Memorial Hermann Hospital
6431 Fannin, MSB 5.020, Houston, TX 77030
e-mail: krishna.boddu@uth.tmc.edu
Cell:713-855-9971, Pager:713-606-1293