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March 2001
Volume 65 |
Number 3
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FAER REPORT
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| Building
Momentum for Research, Endowment and Partnerships |
The Foundation for Anesthesia Education
and Research (FAER) strives to foster progress in anesthesiology,
critical care, pain management and perioperative medicine. We
promote and encourage the development of physician scientists
to improve and perfect the practice of anesthesiology.
FAER accomplishes these goals by 1) awarding
research grants to anesthesiologists, 2) building an endowment
and 3) partnering with members of the anesthesia community. The
grants provide new investigators with time, money and peer-review
approval to conduct preliminary research that, we hope, will make
them competitive for further funding from the National Institutes
of Health or other funding bodies. The goal of funding the endowment
is to enable the foundation to operate and award grants in perpetuity
independent of outside funding. The Foundation is long-term and
aims to support anesthesiologists into the future. Partnering
with the anesthesia community helps maintain an open dialogue
between various constituents of anesthesiology: patients, universities,
private practitioners, pharmaceutical and equipment manufacturers,
researchers, educators and other interested parties.
Outcomes Achieved in 2000
The Foundation funded 11 first-year investigators
and five second-year investigators in 2000. The award recipients
submitted proposals to FAER that were peer-reviewed by the ASA
Committee on Research. This committee scored and ranked the proposals
and recommended funding to the FAER Board.
The Foundation's endowment totaled $12.4
million, $1.3 million more than last year.
FAER partnered with members of the anesthesia
community in various ways. In addition to funding the above-mentioned
investigators, FAER sponsored the attendance at the 2000 ASA Annual
Meeting of 60 residents from different academic programs, hosted
an education panel and conducted an advisory meeting between anesthesiologists
and industry to discuss how the groups can work together and assist
each other to achieve the common goal of improved care for patients.
FAER is fiscally responsible. The operating
expense remains modest at 10 percent of income. The income is
composed of gifts from ASA, component societies, subspecialty
societies, individuals, private practice groups and corporations.
More than 300 individual anesthesiologists and private practice
groups contributed to FAER, five new corporations supported anesthesiologists
through FAER and 10 corporations increased their gift amounts
to FAER.
Changes, Improvements and Additions
to the Foundation
At the most recent FAER Board meeting,
discussions were initiated to consider the need to increase the
amounts of FAER grants, which have remained fixed for more than
five years. This discussion was in response to a reduction in
applications and feedback from academic department chairs that,
with the press of clinical work and the impact of the balanced
budget amendment, they are less able to provide time and matching
funds to junior faculty in order to develop their careers. The
Board will vote in May to approve changes to the grant programs.
The two most significant changes are increasing the duration of
all awards from one to two years and an increase in the amounts
of the awards.
The Foundation will sponsor an Excellence
in Research lecture at the ASA Annual Meeting.
The FAER Board will consider expanding
and formalizing its mentorship program to encourage young investigators.
Evaluation Methods
FAER conducted a survey of FAER award
recipients in 1995 to evaluate the effectiveness of its programs.
The survey asked recipients about current research efforts, institutional
appointment and rank, subsequent funding and mentoring of anesthesiology
trainees in an attempt to measure the success of its former grant
recipients. Another survey will be conducted by 2005. A shorter-term
evaluation concerns the number of researchers and residents supported
this year, the fund-raising results, the growing endowment, the
low operating expenses and the efforts to improve the Foundation
and its programs.
We encourage the ASA membership to contact
FAER at any time with suggestions about the Foundation, its programs,
fund raising, the evaluation or anything else of interest. There
is no spin here. The FAER purpose is clear: to catalyze individuals
and innovation in advancing the art and science of anesthesiology.
A FAER Representation
of Anesthesiology's Brightest – Part Three
| This article represents the final installment of FAER's
award recipients. Previous winners, Hilary P. Grocott, M.D.,
and Warren Sandberg, M.D., Ph.D., were featured in the January
NEWSLETTER; Zhiyi Zuo, M.D., Ph.D., and Shu-Ming Wang, M.D.,
were featured in February. |
The Board of Directors of the Foundation
for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER) is pleased to announce
the latest award recipients from the August 15, 2000, application
submission. FAER is grateful for the generous support and contributions
from ASA, its individual members, component societies, subspecialty
societies and corporations. The funding of FAER grants is made
possible by these donations.
FAER is particularly thankful to the following
societies and corporations that have co-sponsored the awards:
AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Baxter Healthcare Corporation,
the American Geriatrics Society, the Association of University
Anesthesiologists, the Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia, the
Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists and the Society for
Pediatric Anesthesia. FAER also wants to thank the applicants
for their interest in the awards and research and for submitting
such high-quality proposals. The following project summary was
provided by the recipient.
Education Research Award
Murali Sivarajan, M.B.B.S.
Yale University School of Medicine
New Haven, Connecticut
Peer Evaluation of Teaching as a Tool to Improve Teaching Skills
of Clinician Educators.
The current model of development of junior scientists is mentoring
by established senior investigators and peer review of research
that results in funding and publications. This research project
seeks to apply similar principles of mentoring and peer evaluation
for the development of clinician/educators. Both classroom and
clinical teaching by junior faculty will be evaluated by two senior
clinician/educators (peer evaluators) using criterion-referenced
evaluation forms. Both peer evaluators will provide confidential
feedback to the teacher undergoing evaluation. In order to detect
improvement in teaching, blinded resident evaluations of classroom
and clinical teaching before (year 1) and after (year 2) feedback
will be compared to each other. It is hoped that feedback and
mentoring based on peer evaluation will improve teaching skills
and the prospects for academic advancement of junior faculty in
the clinician/educator ranks.
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