You already know that Spectrum Health Care Partners offers top-notch medical care for patients across Maine, and parts of New Hampshire But did you also know about our commitment to the continuing education and training of tomorrow’s health care providers?
Providers from all of our divisions are committed to teaching, training, and mentoring medical students and residents. Many of our physicians serve as faculty at the region’s medical schools, and several as residency program directors at local area hospitals. Yet we also have some special educational efforts worth noting.
Anesthesia Division Creates New Fellowship
To expand the delivery of high-quality care in the communities we serve, our anesthesiology division recently expanded its teaching and education services to include fellowship training in Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology. “Cardiothoracic” refers to the heart and chest; cardiothoracic anesthesiology relates to the delivery and monitoring of anesthesia to a patient during such procedures as open heart surgery, lung surgery, and other operations of the human chest.
Dr. Jessica Hathaway, led the initiative to establish the first cardiothoracic fellowship program in Maine at Maine Medical Center (MMC). A fellowship in medicine is a period of sub-specialty training a physician can enter after completing education in a broader specialty.
This new fellowship program provides robust training in cardiac (heart), thoracic (chest), and vascular (blood vessel) anesthesiology — as well as critical care medicine with special clinical, teaching, and project-based learning opportunities.
With only five other cardiothoracic anesthesiology programs in New England – all based in Boston – the program provides a unique learning opportunity because of its significant volume of patients and range of diseases in a less urban center.
“As a student of cardiothoracic anesthesia, you want exposure to everything,” says Dr. Hathaway. “Our program provides a case diversity and complexity that is generally only found in major urban centers. It’s a wonderful opportunity for fellows and for our state.”
Our Notable Interventional Radiology Residency
Spectrum radiologist Dr. Joseph Gerding, serves as program director of the MMC Interventional Radiology (IR) Residency Program (residency is a specialty training program for graduates of medical school). IR utilizes minimally invasive, image-guided procedures involving radiation to diagnose and treat disease.
Our program faculty consists of over 40 radiologists, including eight interventional radiologists and one endovascular surgical neuroradiologist (a physician who uses image-guided navigation within the blood vessels to diagnose and treat vascular disorders of the brain and spinal cord).
This specialty training program accepts only one physician-student per year, and permits the internship to be done with the surgical program at MMC — allowing the intern to incorporate themselves into the wider clinical team providing patient care. Southern Maine’s diverse patient population enables the residents to perform a comprehensive array of IR procedures that rivals those usually only performed at major academic institutions.
Graduate and Undergraduate Physical Therapy Programs
To establish strong relationships with the communities we serve, our physical therapy centers offer rotations to graduate and undergraduate students. “Rotations” in medical training are clerkship programs in which medical students can shadow health care providers and learn to treat patients in a supportive environment.
Spectrum’s physical therapy rotations are available to students who are currently enrolled in – or are applying to – a physical therapy program. The program prepares students for practice in a specialty area, such as sports medicine, and provides an opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience in treating patients.
Our graduate students complete each of their three rotations at one of our physical therapy centers and are paired with one of our licensed therapists. Undergraduate students join our clinicians for observation to prepare them for applying to a graduate physical therapy program. We are affiliated with the University of New England, University of Connecticut, George Washington University, and Saint Joseph’s College of Maine.
Spectrum is excited to continue guiding new clinicians with such high-caliber training. If you’d like to learn more about these services, please check out the Anesthesia, Vascular & Interventional Radiology, and Physical & Occupational Therapy pages of our website.
