Patient Care

We support comprehensive cardiac services at our two primary locations. Cardiac services at Los Angeles General Medical Center include comprehensive routine and complex cardiac surgical procedures, as well as complex cardio-vascular injuries related to trauma. Keck Hospital of USC is a tertiary/quartinary hospital that accepts complex, elective and emergency cardiac referrals including patients referred to our newly-established Aortic Center.

Critical care services are provided in both the surgical critical care unit and the anesthesia intensive care unit. Care involves multidisciplinary management of complex patients including transplant, cardiac, and complex urological surgical patients.

The ICU, run by USC anesthesia intensivists, has a mixed population of patients following major urologic, ENT, GYN, or oncologic surgery. There are multiple types of major surgery in elderly patients or those with multiple co-morbidities. These patients also are frequently admitted to the SICU. Controlled hypotensive anesthetic techniques are utilized for the more extensive cancer surgeries. Epidural narcotics and regional nerve blocks are administered and monitored for postoperative pain relief.

Our faculty manages elective neurosurgery cases as well as neurotrauma and emergency neurosurgery cases in one of the largest trauma centers in the country. Our neuroanesthesiologists manage some of the most complex spine cases in the West. Due to the extensive opportunities of complexity and volumes, the department has a newly-established fellowship in neuroanesthesia.

The obstetric service manages a diverse range of both routine and complex obstetric cases. High-risk obstetric patients with significant medical disease come to our facility and are cared for by our specialty trained care team.

For chronic pain services, the USC Pain Center has an exceptional multidisciplinary team of pain specialists who can provide assessment and treatment to patients with complex and refractory pain problems. Advanced technology is utilized not only to provide for patient’s physical improvement, but also to strengthen a patient’s emotional ability to cope with the sometimes debilitating effects of pain with a goal of returning to a fully productive life. The chronic pain program includes stress reduction and biofeedback training and acupuncture as well as conventional pharmaceutical, exercise and interventional management strategies.

The department supports pediatrics anesthesia services at Los Angeles General Medical Center, Keck Medical Center of USC, and at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. CHLA hosts the only American College of Surgeons Accredited Level I Pediatric Trauma Center in California and operates the largest neonatal/pediatric transport service in the United States.

Regional/ Acute Interventional Perioperative Pain Services (AIPPS)
The Regional/Acute Interventional Postoperative Pain Service is responsible for the placement of pain blocks to assist in the treatment of postoperative pain. The service is extremely active, performing approximately 950 nerve block procedures per year. The use of regional anesthetic techniques alone or in combination with general anesthesia has led to faster recovery times and shorter length of stay. Part of the training of residents in regional anesthesia also encompasses training of our surgical colleagues in the collaborative care of the patients to provide better overall post-operative pain control, facilitating rehabilitation and decreasing length of stay, with greater patient satisfaction.

We support a full spectrum of organ transplantation services including cadaveric kidney, liver, lung and heart transplantation, as well as a living, related-kidney and liver programs. The department is a pioneer in managing transfusion-free and living-related Jehovah’s Witness liver transplants. The transplant service provides preoperative consultation, recommends diagnostic evaluation and provides intraoperative and postoperative care.

The Los Angeles General Medical Center is the busiest Level I Trauma Center in the United States with over 7,000 trauma admissions per year and over 25 emergency operations per month for patients in extremis. The division of trauma anesthesiology provides perioperative consultation and operative management for injured patients of all ages across the resuscitation continuum.