Department of Anesthesiology
Training & Education

Regional Anesthesiology Fellowship

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Regional Anesthesiology Fellowship

The Department of Anesthesiology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC offers three (3) positions to a one-year Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship.

During the 12-month training period, fellows in regional anesthesia will become proficient in all forms of peripheral and neuraxial anesthetic techniques both single injections as well as continuous catheters.  They will be responsible for the complete management of these patients, assist in training of residents and become proficient in ultrasound-guided blocks.

Fellows will also have the opportunity to round on the inpatient pain service, where they will be taught by chronic pain specialists, providing fellows an opportunity to apply clinical regional anesthesia skills to patients with chronic pain in a perioperative setting.

Training takes place at two major teaching hospitals:

Norris Healthcare Center (HC3) is a world-class specialty care facility located at Keck Medicine of USC on the USC Health Sciences Campus. Our staff provides compassionate care and support across all aspects of treatment, from pre-evaluation to post-surgery. 6 operating rooms are dedicated to providing world-class orthopedic care. This is the foundation of the fellowship where fellows learn and practice their regional techniques and develop pain management plans for our orthopedic patients. The blocks performed here include:

  • Brachial Plexus blocks (Interscalene, supraclavicular, infraclavicular nerve blocks)
  • Terminal nerve blocks (Median, ulnar, radial nerve blocks)
  • Lower extremity blocks (Adductor canal, femoral, subgluteal and anterior sciatic, popliteal, iPACK, fascia iliaca, lumbar plexus blocks)

Keck Hospital of USC, a 401 bed and 25 operating room, acute care hospital, is part of Keck Medicine of USC, the University of Southern California’s medical enterprise. Its internationally renowned physicians care for patients, teach and conduct research at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the region’s first medical school. Here, fellows will perform regional anesthetics, for mostly non-orthopedic patients. Fellows will also spend one day a week in the operating. The truncal blocks performed include:

  • Paravertebral block
  • Erector spinae plane block
  • PECS block
  • Quadratus Lumborum block
  • Transversus Abdominus Plane (TAP) block
  • Thoracic Epidural

Faculty

  • Michael Tom, MD, Fellowship Director
  • Daniel Abraham, MD
  • Mo Eloustaz, MD
  • Gligor Gucev, MD
  • Kevin Guthmiller, MD
  • Paul Lee, MD
  • Christina Ratto, MD
  • Jennifer Smart-Abbey, MD

To provide more consistency and predictability to the RAAPM fellowship application process, nearly 60 RAAAPM fellowship programs have decided to participate in a common application and match process provided by SF Match for recruitment. The Keck School of Medicine of USC Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship program is proud to be one of these programs participating in this new match process for the upcoming interview season for the 2024-2025 Academic year.

This matching process, provided by SF match, analogous to the current match system for trainees in Cardiac, Critical Care, and Obstetric Anesthesiology, will allow fellowship applicants an opportunity to visit and evaluate various training programs systematically over a larger window of time. This resulting match system will improve the equity of the process, create a more flexible and comprehensive interview process, and benefit both applicants and individual programs.

Applicants will have to register with and apply to our program through the SF Match website below. SF Match will be the central site involved in processing applications, accepting rank lists, processing of the match itself, as well as providing post-match vacancy matching.

Regional Anesthesiology & Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship with SF Match Portal

  1. Application Portal opens January 9th, 2023
  2. Locate program(s) of interest using the ASRA Fellowship Directory
  3. Register as an applicant to Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain Medicine (RAAPM) Fellowship on SFMatch.org.
  4. Complete the RAAPM application documents within the SF Match system.
  5. Locate program(s) of interest using the ASRA Fellowship Directory
  6. Programs will set up interviews once applications are received via SF Match portal.
  7. Note all pertinent deadline dates for your application cycle on SF Match website, or the ASRA RAAPM Fellowship Page.
  8. Submit rank list before deadline date.
  9. In some cases, you may be eligible to commit to a program with an exception agreement, after registration on SF Match. These agreements are initiated by the program director and not the applicant.
  10. Obtain match results on date published by SF Match.

If you have any questions, please email Dr. Michael Tom at Michael.tom@med.USC.edu.

We are still accepting applications for the 2024-2025  fellowship year.