Clerkship

Thank you for your interest in our Student / Resident Clerkship Program. The Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Department of Anesthesia offers an elective in perioperative care to all medical/dental students.

The main purpose of our clerkship program is to allow students to become familiar with the field of anesthesia and what it entails to safely manage a patient through their perioperative period. The goals of the clerkship elective:

  • To give medical/dental residents/students an appreciation of the anesthesia field.
  • To teach techniques of preoperative evaluation. To recognize those patients and situations that pose an increased anesthetic risk, and to optimize preoperative therapy for such patients to minimize this risk.
  • To teach the characteristics of commonly used anesthetic agents and techniques and their risks and complications.
  • To acquaint medical students with the principles and skills involved in airway management, intraoperative fluid therapy and the proper use of intraoperative monitors

While the clinical practice of anesthesia has had a long and interesting history, it is only in the last 50 years that the specialty of anesthesiology has become a fully recognized medical discipline. It now requires of its practitioners a broad working knowledge of pharmacology, physiology, pulmonary medicine, cardiology, endocrinology, surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics and electronics. In addition, the anesthesiologist must be skilled in airway maintenance, regional techniques and invasive monitoring. Other than the management of the patient in the perioperative period, this specialty is strongly committed to:

  • Teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation
  • Critical Care Medicine
  • The treatment of acute and chronic pain
  • Research

Student Information

  • Call the Anesthesia Clinical Office at 732-937-8841 and ask for Dr. Alexander Kahan or Dr. Christopher Fjotland.
  • You will meet with Dr. Zuker/Fjotland in the anesthesia clinical office, 1st floor of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (across from the Medical Records Department) at 7:00 a.m. sharp for your first assignment.
  • Please take the time to read over our handout before you report for your anesthesia rotation.
  • You may contact Dr. Dora Zuker by e-mail or Dr. Christopher Fjotland by email.