Harvard Anesthesiology Update 2025

1. Elevating Quality of Care in the Perioperative Arena

1. Research Fraud: Trials of Fujii: Impact on the Anesthesia Practitioner – Jaideep Pandit, MA, BM, DPhil, FRCA, FFPMRCA, DM

2. Rethinking the Anesthesiology Workforce: Impact on Patient Care – James P. Rathmell, MD, MBA

3. Myocardial Injury After Noncardiac Surgery – Daniel I. Sessler, MD

4. Space Medicine 101 – Shawna Pandya, MD, MSc

2. Innovations in 2025

1. Perioperative Methadone: Clinical Application, Opioid Sparing, and Patient Benefit – Evan Kharasch, MD, PhD

2. The Implications of Defining an Optimum Means of Assisted Dying – Jaideep Pandit, MA, BM, DPhil, FRCA, FFPMRCA, DM

3. Perioperative Gabapentinoids: Slow, Stop, or Reverse? – Evan Kharasch, MD, PhD

3. Cutting-Edge Topics

1. Management of Massive Hemorrhage in the Operating Room – Keyvan Karkouti, MD, FRCPC, MSc

2. Update in Blood Conservation Techniques for the Anesthesiologist – Susan Goobie, MD, FRCPC

3. Point-of-Care Coagulation Testing – Keyvan Karkouti, MD, FRCPC, MSc

4. Practice Parameters: Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

1. Non-Operating Room Anesthesia: Enhancing Patient Safety in Remote Locations – Emily Methangkool, MD, MPH

2. Medication Safety in Anesthesia Practice – Elizabeth Rebello, MD, FACHE, FASA, CPPS, CMQ

3. ASPF Priorities: Current Focus and Future Directions – Steven Greenberg, MD

4. Fireside Chat: Urgent and Upcoming Threats to Patient Safety: Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Criminalization of Medical Error – Drs. Greenberg, Methangkool, and Rebello

1. The High-Risk Obstetric Patient: Evidence-Based Practice

1. Post-Lumbar Puncture Headache – Philip Hess, MD

2. Maternal Infections – Emily Naoum, MD

3. The Dural Puncture Epidural: Finally, Optimal Neuraxial Labor Analgesia – Lawrence Tsen, MD

4. Maternal Morbidity and Mortality: An Anesthesia Clinician’s Perspective – Michaela K. Farber, MD, MS

2. Airway Management in 2025

1. Scanning the Airway Horizon: Defining Landmarks – Ellen O’Sullivan, MD, FRCA, FCAI, FCPSP(Hon), FCANECSA(Hon)

2. Managing an Airway on Mars – Shawna Pandya, MD, MSc

3. Management of the Impossible Airway – Ellen O’Sullivan, MD, FRCA, FCAI, FCPSP(Hon), FCANECSA(Hon)

3. Clinical Conundrums: Session 1

1. Mechanisms Underlying Perioperative Neurocognitive Disorders: New Treatment Strategies – Beverley A. Orser, OOnt, MD, PhD, FRCPC, FCAHS, FRSC

2. Aortic Stenosis—No Need to Be Afraid: Management of Patients with Aortic Stenosis for Non-Cardiac Cases – Douglas Shook, MD

3. Ketamine: Old Drug Learning New Tricks – Beverley A. Orser, OOnt, MD, PhD, FRCPC, FCAHS, FRSC

4. Clinical Conundrums: Session 2

1. Beyond Borders: Achieving Long-Term Impact in Surgical Outreach in Ukraine: Decades of Work – Gennadiy Fuzaylov, MD

2. Determining Death and Gifting Life: Clinico-Ethical Challenges in Organ Donation – Jonah Rubin, MD

3. How to Intervene When a Colleague May Be Impaired – Michael G. Fitzsimons, MD

4. Geriatric Care Perfected: Geriatric Assessment and Evidence-Based Care – Houman Javedan, MB ChB

1. Thinking Outside the Box

1. Right Heart Risk: When to Suspect and What to Do – Monty Mythen, MD, FRCA, FFICM

2. Trauma Management: Recent Advances – Jamie Sparling, MD

3. Human Tolerance of Hypoxia: Lessons from Mount Everest – Monty Mythen, MD, FRCA, FFICM

2. Implications of Artificial Intelligence in the Perioperative Setting: Here to Stay

1. The Future of Preoperative Risk Prediction: Machine Learning – Hannah Lonsdale, MBChB

2. Smarter Beeps, Safer Beeps: Artificial Intelligence for Intraoperative Care – Alan F. Simpao, MD, MBI

3. Decoding Artificial Intelligence in the Postoperative Arena – Samir Kendale, MD

4. Ethical Issues in the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Anesthesia Practice – Ornella Piazza, MD

3. Rapid-Fire Session

1. Head and Neck Blocks for an Awake Craniotomy – Arthur R. Formanek, MD

2. Current Practices and Future Directions in Liver Transplantation – Riccardo Pinciroli, MD

3. Point-of-Care Lung Ultrasound – Louisa J. Palmer, MBBS

4. Point-of-Care Cardiac Ultrasound – Aidan Sharkey, MD

4. Regional Anesthesia: Making It Safer

1. Evidence-Based Review—Technical Tips: Brachial Plexus Blocks Below the Clavicle – Vishal Uppal, MBBS, MSc, FRCA

2. Analgesia After Cardiothoracic Surgery: Enthusiasm and Logic in Choosing the Optimal Regional Anesthesia Technique – Kamen Vlassakov, MD

3. Management of Rebound Pain After a Peripheral Nerve Block – Vishal Uppal, MBBS, MSc, FRCA

4. Ultrasound-Guided Neuraxial Blocks – Brinda Kamdar, MD

1. Clinical Practice Impact

1. Perioperative Delirium – Daniel I. Sessler, MD

2. Why Should Anesthesia Practitioners Look Beyond the BIS Number? – Darren F. Hight, PhD

3. Perioperative Management of Patients with Diabetes to Improve Outcome – Donal J. Buggy, DSc, MD, MSc, FRCPI, FFSEM, FRCA, FESA-IC, FCAI

4. Emergence from General Anesthesia: What Can the EEG Tell Us? – Darren F. Hight, PhD

2. Care of the Critically Ill Patient

1. Update on Hemodynamic Monitoring in the Intensive Care Unit – Christian Wunder, DEAA

2. Biomarkers in Sepsis and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome – Ornella Piazza, MD

3. Nutrition in the ICU – Christian Wunder, DEAA

3. Critical Thinking

1. Physician, Measure Thyself: Using Data to Collaborate and Improve Care – Sachin Kheterpal, MD, MBA

2. Review of Malpractice Cases – Satya Krishna Ramachandran, MD, MBA

3. Separating Machine Learning: Hype Versus Reality – Sachin Kheterpal, MD, MBA

4. Keeping Our Children Safe

1. Airway Challenges in the Pediatric Patient – Jennifer Dearden, MD

2. Anesthesia in the Land of Oz and Weg – Karen Boretsky, MD

3. Update on Pediatric Advanced Life Support: What’s New in 2025 – Monica Kleinman, MD

4. Pearls and Perils in Preparing Children for Anesthesia – Lynne Ferrari, MD

5. Patient Safety: Day Surgery in Pediatric Patients – Keira P. Mason, MD

1. Something Old, Something Current—But Still Very Relevant

1. Magic, Sorcery and Witchcraft: Two Millennia of Anesthesia History Before 1846 – Robert Holzman, MD

2. Multimodal Anesthesia: Getting It Right – Emery Brown, MD, PhD

3. From Brain to Consciousness: Lessons from Coma and Related States – Olivia Gosseries, MD

4. Back to the Future: The Eternal Pendulum of Perioperative Fluid Balance – Donal J. Buggy, DSc, MD, MSc, FRCPI, FFSEM, FRCA, FESA-IC, FCAI

5. Neurophysiological Markers of (Dis)connectedness: Insights from Anesthesia – Olivia Gosseries, MD

2. End-of-Life Care

1. Palliative Care in the ICU – Ornella Piazza, MD

2. The Power of Hope – Richard E. Leiter, MD, MA

3. Comfort: Symptom Management for Patients and Their Families at the End of Life – Natsu (Fukui) Matsuya, MD

4. Communication Needs of Patients and Their Families at the End of Life – Lannie C. Santo, MD, MPH

5. Continuity: Hospice Care and Care of the Bereaved in 2025 – Sue Morris, PsyD