Evaluation of a Brazilian's cardiovascular anesthesia fellowship by its former trainees

BACKGROUND: After advancement of cardiovascular surgery, there is also exponential development of anesthetic techniques in this field. Patients with increasing clinical complexity challenge cardiac anesthesiologists to keep constantly updated. An evaluation of Brazilian's cardiovascular anesthesia fellowship at Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology has been made and information has been collected to evaluate the fellowship program in cardiovascular anesthesia. METHOD: Target participants were made up of former fellowships, contacted via e-mail containing an invitation to voluntarily participate. Explanation of the survey's purpose was provided. This communication was signed by the authors and contained a hyperlink to the survey, which was constructed on and hosted on a web platform. The survey was composed of 10 objectives questions designed to describe training and subsequent career. RESULTS: The adjusted survey response rate was 71%. Two-thirds of respondents agreed that fellowship training provided them an advantage in the job market and 93% of respondents currently work with cardiac anesthesia. At least 87% of participants would recommend the course to other anesthesiologists. CONCLUSION: Fellowship graduates judge their technical training as excellent and incorporated the knowledge acquired in their daily practice. However, there are improvements to be made. We believe this document may be useful as a reference for other institutions to develop their own cardiovascular anesthesia fellowship programs.