Non-OR Anesthesia (NORA) Division

The 'New Kid on the Block' in the Department of Anesthesiology is the Division of Non-Operating Room Anesthesia. Traditionally, anesthesiology services have been provided in the safe environs of the hospital operating rooms. However, in recent years there has been a paradigm shift towards more minimally or non-invasive procedures (both therapeutic and diagnostic) being done outside of the OR. Our department has responded by creating a Division that specializes in the care of these patients. We have a group of dedicated faculty who work as part of a multidisciplinary team in tandem with the proceduralists to provide the highest quality patient care and satisfaction outside of the operating rooms. For our anesthesiologists, patient safety undoubtedly takes the top priority!

NORA services are provided at the recently renovated state-of-the-art six-room Interventional Advanced Endoscopy/ Bronchoscopy Suite, two Electrophysiology procedure rooms, a TEE Lab and four Radiology interventional procedure rooms. In addition, we perform services for ECT and Radiation Oncology. The NORA Division is keeping up with the challenge presented by the advances in technology and the increases in the complexity of these interventional procedures. With more than 8,000 procedures performed in the endoscopy center, one of the busiest Electrophysiology services in NY and hundreds of interventional radiology procedures per year, off-site anesthesia services are in high demand and will continue to expand.

With the recent mandatory introduction of a two week NORA rotation for residents last July, we have introduced an exceptional quality educational curriculum that includes lectures and exposure to a wide variety of cases. Our patient population is diverse. During the course of a day you may be taking care of a healthy ASA 1 patient getting a screening colonoscopy or an ASA 4 patient getting therapeutic tracheal or biliary stent for inoperable obstructive cancers! We certainly have our share of difficult airways and other challenging cases with advanced GI/Pulmonary and interventional cardiology procedures. During this rotation you will learn how to provide safe anesthesia with cultural and operational barriers that exist in such seemingly far off places. And once the residency is over, and your first assignment as a brand new attending is in the EP lab, you will certainly be the one and only confident anesthesiologist who has 'been there, done that'!