A survey of undergraduate teaching in anaesthesia

Currently, no well accepted and clearly defined 'core' curriculum for under graduate anaesthesia. teaching exists. To address this deficiency, we surve yed 73 university departments of anaesthesia and intensive care. Sixty-five replied from South-east Asia (12), Australasia (13), the UK and Ireland (2 8) and Canada (12). A questionnaire containing 37 items ranging from depart mental structure to curriculum content was used. We found significant regio nal differences. Overall, most departments taught pharmacology of anaesthet ic drugs (83%), pre-operative assessment (92%) and care of the unconscious patient (77%). Ninety-seven per cent taught airway management and intubatio n and 80% taught intravenous cannulation. Basic life support was taught by 97% and advanced life support by 71%. Fewer than half taught advanced traum a life support principles (44%). Critical care teaching was less well defin ed, but a consensus of schools taught respiratory failure and ventilation, management of circulatory shock and principles of sepsis and multi-organ sy stem failure. Practical clinical skills were taught mainly using patients a nd simulators, 46% had a skills laboratory and six employed a resuscitation officer. However, it should be noted that we did not assess the quality an d outcome of teaching.