Audit of anesthetic trainees' 'hands-on' operating room experience in an Australian tertiary children's hospital.

BACKGROUND: There are no internationally accepted guidelines about what constitutes adequate clinical exposure during pediatric anesthetic training. In Australia, no data have been published on the level of experience obtained by anesthetic trainees in pediatric anesthesia. There is, however, a new ANZCA (Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists) curriculum that quantifies new training requirements. AIM: To quantify our trainees' exposure to clinical work in order to assess compliance with new curriculum and to provide other institutions with a benchmark for pediatric anesthetic training. METHODS: We performed a prospective audit to estimate and quantify our anesthetic registrars' exposure to pediatric anesthesia during their 6-month rotation at our institution, a tertiary pediatric hospital in Perth, Western Australia. RESULTS: Our data suggest that trainees at our institution will achieve the new ANZCA training standards comfortably, in terms of the required volume and breadth of exposure. Experience, however, of some advanced pediatric anesthetic procedures appears limited. CONCLUSIONS: Experience gained at our hospital easily meets the new College requirements. Experience of fiber-optic intubation and regional blocks would appear insufficient to develop sufficient skills or confidence. The study provides other institutions with information to benchmark against their own trainee experience.