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Evolution of the WFSA education program in Chile

It is 1996 in Santiago de Chile. During the Congress of the Latin American Confederation of Anesthesia Societies (CLASA), a group of well-known professors are in search of a pediatric hospital in Latin America to host a pediatric anesthesia education program. Haydnt Perndt, Charles Coté, Kester Brown and David Hatch visited our centre the Hospital Luis Calvo Mackenna, in Santiago, Chile which is a 230-bed facility for children from Santiago and complex cases from all over Chile. We have an Anesthesia Unit comprising ten staff anesthesiologists and a variable number of residents and fellows from three different universities. We undertake >9000 cases each year for all areas of pediatric surgery and diagnostic procedures, including neonatal, orthopedic, cardiac, plastic and reconstructive, etc. including both videoassisted and open techniques. After a satisfactory visit, we were asked to join this educational initiative, which we accepted without hesitatation. Since then 15 anesthesiologists have completed the program and one fellow from Guatemala is currently with us. We have had collegues from Perú, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela. One of the strengths of this program is that in Latin America almost all countries have Spanish as the official language, which is very convenient when training people. There is a permanent supervision and constant communication with the Chairman of the Education Committee of the WFSA, initially Haydnt Perndt, then Angela Enright and most recently Jannicke Mellin-Olsen. The WFSA gives financial support for the period the trainees are in Chile. This funding is approved in the London Office of the WFSA, and transferred to an account managed by the Anesthesia Society of Chile, for transfer to the fellow on a monthly basis. The selection of fellows follows a simple procedure: through personal contacts and CLASA this program is offered to the Anesthesia Societies of Latin America. Applicants must have completed an Anesthesia program and have a valid Anesthesiologist license from their country, and must show recommendations from the Chairman of an Anesthesia Department and from the local Anesthesia Society. We have the capacity to receive one foreign doctor at a time, because of the number of Chilean residents training at our hospital. The program consists of 6 months to 1 year training in Pediatric Anesthesia. During this time the fellow rotates through the different areas of the specialty, acquiring the competencies required to administer anesthesia to infants and children. The activities cover theoretical and practical aspects of Pediatric Anesthesia. The training includes 2 to 3 months of practice in the Cardiac Operating Room, where they deal with invasive monitoring and practice with complex cardiovascular malformations. Other areas covered by the program are: preoperative consultation, risk stratification, co-morbitities, blood-saving techniques, regional anesthesia, acute pain control, anesthesia for organ transplantation and difficult airway management. The fellows are encouraged to assist with a number of monthly academic meetings organized by the Anesthesia Society and the Pediatric Anesthesia Group and also they must assist with the annual Anesthesia Congress of Chile, for which the Society provides reimbursement for travel expenses, lodging and the registration fee. For us, after all these years, this has been a tremendous experience and a chance to cooperate with the development of Pediatric Anesthesia in a variety of countries, where this specialty is underdeveloped. We like to think that we, along the WFSA, have helped in some way to improve the care Pediatric Anesthesia 2009 19: 33–34 doi:10.1111/j.1460-9592.2008.02881.x