Regional Anesthesia Division

Patient Care Information
Clinical Protocols

The Division of Regional Anesthesia is under the direction of Dr. Eman Nada. The team works closely with surgeons to assure that the patients' entire perioperative experience is pleasant.

Stony Brook University Hospital is one of the largest Trauma Centers in the nation, thereby allowing residents to participate in providing safe and effective anesthesia care to orthopedic trauma, which encompasses spinal fractures, acetabulum, pelvic fractures and multiple extremity fractures. This includes patients with unstable cervical spinals requiring advanced airway management techniques and advanced fluid and coagulation management strategies. The Division of Regional Anesthesia also serves a large patient population requiring total joint replacement, adult spine surgery, elective orthopedic trauma surgery, sports medicine, hand surgery and a variety of plastic surgeries. The Division includes regional anesthesiologists trained in the delivery of state-of-the-art neuroaxial and peripheral nerve blocks for improved patient care. The Division is proud to have participated in the care of patients who have had both hands reattached in an eleven-hour surgical procedure after an industrial accident. This case gained both national and international publicity, demonstrating the excellence of care provided here at Stony Brook University Hospital.

CA1 residents have a 4-week mandatory rotation closely supervised by the faculty in the division. Typically, residents receive a welcoming e-mail from our educational director explaining what to expect during this rotation, detailed goals and objectives, and a list of the topics needed to be discussed intraoperatively with the faculty during the rotation. We place a lot of emphasis on intraoperative teaching. There is also an exit quiz/ test at the end of the rotation.

This rotation also offers a great learning opportunity for the residents, as the nature of the cases are different every day since our patient population is diverse. Cases could range from an elderly patient with many co-morbidities having a fragility hip fracture to a penetrating multiple Ortho trauma needed advanced airway technique or to manage a complex trauma patient involving multiple specialties with pelvic fracture, to a simple sports-related knee arthroscopy or elective joint replacement, spine and breast surgery.

The residents are also exposed to variety of acute pain procedures, and learn how to manage the acute postoperative pain.

The REGAIN trial has been completed. The results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. REGAIN, a Multicenter randomized controlled trial which compares survival, functional recovery, cognitive outcomes and postoperative adverse events among patients age 50 and older receiving spinal vs GA for hip fracture surgery.