Course Overviews
Simulation for every experience level
Junior Otolaryngology (ORL) Residents and Advanced Practice Providers
The CORES Course
The CORES (Children's Otolaryngology Residents' Emergency Skills) Course has been given annually at Boston Children's Hospital since 2011. It is designed to provide junior residents and newly minted Advanced Practice Providers the opportunity to learn basic surgical skills that will be useful for them while on call or during ORL emergencies early in their careers. The course is open to PGY-1 residents and NPs, and PAs. Taught in an informal atmosphere by area faculty, it is attended by trainees from programs throughout New England.
Pediatric ORL Fellows and Intermediate Residents
NOA Course
The leading cause of errors in hospitals and operating rooms (OR) result from communication and teamwork failures. Only recently has medical education considered the role of these issues in such errors. The NOA (Nursing, Otolaryngology, Anesthesia) course was developed to teach trainees how to improve human factor performance by emphasizing the importance of non-technical skills in the OR. The NOA course is the first to teach Crisis Resource Management (CRM) principles, teamwork, and communication skills to ORL trainees using native teams in an in situ OR setting. In Boston, it remains unique among all surgical services in providing this type of in situ training routinely to intermediate-level residents and pediatric ORL fellows. Each NOA course lasts 5 ½ hours. The course is given five to six times annually and has provided CRM training to nearly 600 participants since 2007.
CICU/ORL Course
Pediatric airway issues often occur in children with heart anomalies. Consistent with this finding, there has been an increase in airway abnormalities and emergencies in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) at BCH over the past several years. Because of this, the ORL inpatient service is frequently called to the CICU on an urgent or emergent basis to assist with airway emergencies in the unit. Since 2016, the Cardiac Intensivists along with the ORL service have been holding joint in situ simulations in the CICU. These simulations are multidisciplinary (cardiac intensive care, ORL, cardiac nursing and respiratory therapy) in nature to provide both content education and improve teamwork and communication.
ORL Attendings