Program Director Message

Welcome to the Department of Anesthesiology, ICU and Perioperative Medicine at the Hamad medical Corporation (HMC), Doha, Qatar. It is my honor and privilege as the Anesthesiology Residency Program Director, to guide, support, teach and mentor residents ensuring they receive the best possible educational experience and graduate as competent, compassionate and knowledgeable anesthesiologists. 

HMC is the principal public healthcare provider in the State of Qatar. Our Corporate Academic Healthcare System vision is to deliver the safest, most effective and most compassionate care to each and every one of our patients. We, in the training program, strive to achieve the same vision in training our budding anesthesiologists.

The residency program was launched in 2004, approved by the Arab Board of Medical Specialization (ABA) and received Initial accreditation by Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education International in 2014 (ACGMEI) and Continued accreditation without citation in 2016. We have eight resident positions in each year of training. We start with one year of clinical base year where our residents rotate through medical specialties learning fundamental clinical skills. It is followed by three years of basic to advanced clinical anesthesiology and critical care rotations. These four years of training are accredited by ACGMEI. We have fifth year of advanced anesthesiology residency training before completing the Arab Board of Medical Specialization.

The HMC Residency Program in Anesthesiology offers excellent clinical training opportunities which involves caring for the most medically and surgically challenging patients in the State of Qatar. All surgical specialties are represented in our program with especially high volumes in acute surgical care, neurosurgery, orthopedic, trauma, and bariatric surgery. Our residents average 400 operative cases per year in addition to pain and critical care experience, covering a complete range of specialties and practice locations. They work under close supervision of our faculty to ensure that each patient encounter is a learning experience. The clinical faculty employed for training are experts in various anesthesia subspecialties and trained from excellent centers in the world. Given the complexity of our patient population and the diversity of cases, our residents are uniquely prepared for independent anesthesia practice. 

In addition to clinical learning, our 1^st year residents get one block of training in Quality Improvement while 4^th year residents have one block for Research experience. The second year (CA2) is largely devoted to basic anesthesia training while 3^rd and 4^th year is for specialty and advanced training including cardiac, neurosurgical, pediatric, obstetric anesthesia, as well as chronic pain management, and critical care medicine. Regional anesthesia is strengthened with one Block Room rotation, two blocks in orthopedic anesthesia and one block of anesthesia for plastic surgery rotation during second year of training. 

Residents participate in a variety of educational activities including a rigorous morning didactic series, simulation sessions, professional development opportunities, quality improvement projects, and faculty mentorship in research endeavors. Educational activities include: Journal club, Grand rounds, Specialty rounds and Morbidity and Mortality meetings. Residents have six hours of dedicated teaching activity on Tuesdays where basic and advanced lecture series is presented by the resident while faculty moderates those sessions.

Education being priority at HMC, it provides us exceptional educational resources. Our Academic Medical Center is a state-of-the-art facility with more than 1000 bed. It comprises of many hospitals under the umbrella of HMC and pediatric hospital under Sidra Medicine. All the facilities have a newly remodeled and expanded operating suite and the main teaching site, Hamad General Hospital (HGH) has 19 operating rooms including three hybrid ORs. At HGH, we provide nearly 25,000 anesthetics per year and our obstetrical hospital does 9000 deliveries every year. In addition to above clinical experience, we are a level one trauma center, we have a life support training center where our residents go through courses like ALS, ATLS, APLS and we boast of new Itqan simulation center where residents will receive state of the art simulation training. After completion of residency program, residents have option to pursue further training as fellowship in Anesthesia subspecialties and Intensive care.

Our teaching and resident learning is reflected by our board certification rate of 100% for the last five years. Our alumni are successful as consultants in our Institute or have achieved academic position in USA, UK and Palestine or pursuing higher training in USA.

Thank you for taking the time to look at our program. We have a lot to offer to the medical student contemplating a career in anesthesiology, we are committed to training the next generation as leaders in our specialty. I look forward to meeting you in person and showing you the unique strengths of our program.

Dr. Khalil Ullah Shibli
Program Director of anesthesia residency program