Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesia Fellowship

Thank you for taking interest the Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesia Fellowship at Rutgers Health Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick.

The Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesia Fellowship is an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited 1-year fellowship. The goal of the fellowship is to provide an academic environment and enough clinical substrate to ensure that the fellow achieves a level of autonomy in delivering anesthetic care for complex cardiac surgery. 

Visit us here for information about the Division of Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology

Here at Rutgers Health, we offer 4 positions for an ACGME accredited 1-year fellowship in Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology.  Completion of this fellowship gives each graduate the opportunity to sit for both the ABA exam in Cardiac Anesthesia and the NBE exam in advanced perioperative transesophageal echocardiography.  By the end of the fellowship, each fellow will have the didactic knowledge and clinical ability to take care of the most complex patients undergoing cardiac, thoracic, and major vascular surgery.

Our fellowship begins on August 1 and ends on July 31 of the following year.

We ask that completed applications be submitted no later than the SF Match recommended deadline of March 5^, 2025.  However, we begin reviewing applications for interview offers on a rolling basis beginning in November of 2024.  We do understand some residents do not take part in their cardiac anesthesia rotation until their CA-2 year and understand they may not apply until later in the match cycle.

Over the course of 12 months, each fellow will complete the following rotations:

• 20 Weeks of Cardiac Surgery at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
• 4 Weeks of Cardiac and Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center
• 4 Weeks of Thoracic Surgery at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
• 4 Weeks of CTICU
• 1 Week of providing anesthesia to patients undergoing EP procedures
• 1 Week working with the cardiologists and echo Techs in the Echo Lab learning and performing both Transthoracic and Transesophageal echo
• 5 Weeks of performing transesophageal echo in the OR

Fellows will also have the opportunity to take part in the following electives:

• Perfusion
• CT Surgery
• Heart Failure
• Structural Heart

Fellows are also given the opportunity during the year to care for patients undergoing major vascular procedures (TEVAR/open AAA repair) including the placement of spinal drains for select procedures.

In addition to clinical education, each fellow will take part in the weekly didactic lectures created specifically for our fellows to cover topics covering both cardiac anesthesia and transesophageal echocardiography.  The goal of this lecture series is to prepare our fellows to successfully pass both ABA and NBE exams.  The fellows are also invited to attend the M&M and PI meetings with the cardiac surgery service.

As a teaching institution, our fellows spend time training junior residents and resident nurse anesthetist students over the course of this year.  This time gives our fellows the opportunity to develop their skills as an educator and a supervisor.

We wish you the best of luck moving forward.

Please reach out with any questions regarding our program.

Former Graduates

2023-2024

Turky Alsubahi, MBBS - King Abdulaziz University Hospital – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Benjamin Kornblatt, MD - Sentara RMH Medical Center - Harrisonburg, VA

Joshua Stolz, DO - Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital – Philadelphia, PA

2022-2023

Karina Braslavskaya, MD – Northwell Health – Long Island, NY

Eileen Kodack, DO – Rutgers Health Robert Wood Johnson Medical School – New Brunswick, NJ

2021-2022

Marie Caruso, DO – Cooper University Medical Center – Camden, NJ

Randall Holtby, MD - St. John's Regional Medical Center – Oxnard, CA

2020-2021

Sarah Lim, MD - Renown Health – Reno, NV

Justin Roberts, MD - Sentara RMH Medical Center – Norfolk, VA

2019-2020

Demetri Adrahtas, MD - UMass Memorial Medical Center - Worcester, MA

Rebecca Lee, MD – Loyola University – Chicago, IL

2018-2019

Huy Nguyen, MD - Self Regional Medical Center, Greenville, SC

Sho Tanaka, MBBS – Cedars Sinai – Los Angeles, CA

2017-2018

Jessica Varga, DO – West Virginia University – Morgantown, WV

Amanda Zarchin, MD - Sentara RMH Medical Center - Harrisonburg, VA

2016-2017

Ari Kahan, MD – Jersey Shore Medical Center – Neptune, NJ

Sagar Mungekar, MD – Rutgers Health Robert Wood Johnson Medical School – New Brunswick, NJ

2015-2016

Brian Raffel, DO - Rutgers Health Robert Wood Johnson Medical School – New Brunswick, NJ

Dmitriy Yukhvid, MD – Albany Medical College – Albany, NY