FAER at ANESTHESIOLOGY 2024

Original Publication Date: June 26, 2024
Last Updated On: September 18, 2024

The Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER) is excited to share the sessions we have planned for ANESTHESIOLOGY^® 2024 in Philadelphia this October. We encourage you to join us for the sessions detailed below and we look forward to seeing you all at this year’s meeting.

FAER would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Early-Stage Anesthesiology Scholars (eSAS) for their collaboration around the wonderful content planned for FAER/eSAS: A Day for New Researchers.

Please note that the information on this page is subject to change. Check back regularly for the most up-to-date information!

Click here to register for ANESTHESIOLOGY 2024.

Saturday, October 19, FAER Sessions

• 24th Annual FAER-Helrich Research Lecture: From Pain's Enigma to Clinical Transformation – Unraveling Mechanisms, Forging Biomarkers, and Empowering Clinicians and Patients

• FAER Panel: The Future of Pain Relief – Lessons from Pain Mechanisms and Predictive Models to Scaling Evidence-based Interventions

• FAER/eSAS: Funding Alphabet Soup – How Does FAER Fit in and Where Can It Take You?

• FAER/eSAS: Perspectives on Careers in Research

• FAER/ARMA Sponsored Mentoring Session: Finding the Right Research Question & Path, Right Environment & Culture, and Right Mentor

• FAER Medical Student and Resident Research Symposium

Featured Lectures and Panels

24^th Annual FAER-Helrich Research Lecture: From Pain's Enigma to Clinical Transformation – Unraveling Mechanisms, Forging Biomarkers, and Empowering Clinicians and Patients
Saturday, October 19 | 9:45 - 10:45 a.m. ET | Pennsylvania Convention Center; 123

Lecturer: Sean Mackey, MD, PhD

The FAER-Helrich Research Lecture recognizes outstanding scholarship by a scientist and is part of FAER’s ongoing effort to encourage early career anesthesiologists and trainees to consider careers in research and teaching.

The problem of pain is astounding. Over 50 million Americans experience chronic pain. And over 20 million suffer from high-impact chronic pain that severely restricts their activity of daily living – at a cost exceeding half a trillion dollars per year. Over the past decades, our mechanistic understanding of pain has led to multidisciplinary therapies (e.g. medications, psychological treatments, neuromodulation treatments). Despite the multitude of pain treatments, their use shows incomplete recovery at the population level. However, subgroups of individuals completely respond, do not change, or even worsen following pain management. Thus, robust and validated biomarkers are needed to identify treatment responders, trajectories of outcomes, trajectory of outcome (i.e., recovery versus persistence), and those vulnerable to developing persistent pain after surgery. Finally, we need means to translate validated biomarkers into clinical decision support tools to improve clinician decision making.

This session will cover the speaker’s journey from discovery of CNS mechanisms of human pain to the development of objective pain biomarkers. He will describe making this knowledge clinically useful using an open-source learning health system he developed. Finally, the session will discuss future needs and solutions to achieve the goal of precision pain medicine.

Learning objectives for this lecture include the ability to:

• Describe how objective pain biomarker discovery and validation will advance precision pain medicine.
• Delineate how high-quality data gained from biomarkers and mechanisms can be translated into clinical decision support tools.
• Describe the challenges of developing clinically useful predictive and prognostic models of pain.

FAER Panel: The Future of Pain Relief – Lessons from Pain Mechanisms and Predictive Models to Scaling Evidence-based Interventions
Saturday, October 19 | 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. ET | Pennsylvania Convention Center; 123

Moderator: Sean Mackey, MD, PhD

Topics and Speakers:

• Mistakes Were Made: How to Fix Preclinical (Pain) Research
  Speaker: Jeff Mogil, PhD

• Hubris and Humility in Postoperative Pain Prediction
  Speaker: Patrick Tighe, MD, MS

• Empowering Pain Relief Across the Continuum of Care
  Speaker: Beth Darnall, PhD

This session will cover three critical topics in perioperative and chronic pain, covering basic, data and clinical sciences. Dr. Mogil will describe the recent explosion in our understanding of the molecular and cellular underpinnings of pain, but this knowledge has not resulted in many new clinical therapies. He believes that one major reason for preclinical-to-clinical translational failure in the pain field, and more broadly, stems from poor subject and experimental design choices made by preclinical scientists in the name of research efficiency. His talk will detail how the choice of genetic background, sex, age/duration of injury, and laboratory environmental factors can profoundly alter the conclusions of preclinical experiments.

Dr. Tighe will describe how AI models can substantially outperform traditional statistical methods for the prediction of perioperative events. However, AI models also pose numerous challenges with respect to trustworthiness. His presentation will briefly review the process of developing perioperative AI models, and discuss lessons learned when attempting to translate them into clinical practice.

Dr. Darnall will describe how pain has primarily been treated through biomedical approaches, which have achieved limited success. Recent advances in research and clinical care have demonstrated the effectiveness of integrating behavioral therapies for both perioperative and chronic pain populations. However, these therapies are often available only at large centers and to individuals with financial means, thus excluding many underserved populations. Dr. Darnall will discuss how advances in online and digital technologies, combined with innovative, brief behavioral interventions, can help overcome barriers to pain care. These approaches offer opportunities to expand treatments across perioperative and chronic pain settings, ensuring that no patient is left behind.

Learning objectives for this panel include the ability to:

• Describe the current external validity challenges and solutions in preclinical pain research.
• Review opportunities and challenges in developing AI models to predict postoperative pain.
• List the opportunities to integrate brief behavioral to scale pain management broadly in the perioperative and chronic pain environments.

FAER/eSAS: A Day for New Researchers

FAER/eSAS: Funding Alphabet Soup – How Does FAER Fit In and Where Can It Take You?
Sunday, October 20 |  | 8 – 9 a.m. ET | Pennsylvania Convention Center; 201ABC

Moderator: Nabil Thalji, MD, PhD

Speakers:

• Rachel Hadler, MD

• Mark Neuman, MD, MSc

• Douglas Colquhoun, MPH, MSc, MBChB

This panel will begin with a brief discussion by the Moderator of the various ways research relating to anesthesia is funded. This serves as an introduction or refresher to the audience who may be unfamiliar, and will aid in the understanding of our panelists’ discussion of their careers. After this introduction, three panelists will share brief presentations outlining their career pathways and how being awarded a FAER MRTG has played a role in their careers. We have selected panelist from early, mid, and well established career stages, as well as various areas of research. We hope that this introduces some of the many different possibilities in a research career, and helps de-mystify “life after training” transition that often feels like a “black box” and often discourages people from considering a career in research.

Learning objectives for this session include the ability to:

• Describe the difference between foundation and NIH funding.
• Name at least one award mechanism in each category (Foundation vs. NIH).
• Describe how FAER MRTG funding has helped launch the academic career of at least 1 panelist.

FAER/eSAS: Perspectives on Careers in Research
Sunday, October 20 |  | 9:15 – 10:15 a.m. ET | Pennsylvania Convention Center; 201ABC

Moderator: Elizabeth Townsend, MD, PhD

Speakers:

• Erin Ciampa, MD, PhD

• Ken Solt, MD

• Elizabeth Whitlock, MD, MSc

• Keith Vogt, MD, PhD, FASA

This session aims to highlight the multiple paths that early-, mid-, and senior stage investigators have taken to becoming successful physician-scientists. Additionally, the panelists engage in research in multiple areas of anesthesia research, demonstrating the breadth of possibility in research in anesthesia. The moderator will lead a structured discussion amongst the panelists that will explore how the panelists started their careers, how they developed their research interests, and lessons they have learned during their journeys. The second portion will involve the panelists taking questions from the audience.

Learning objectives for this session include the ability to:

• Define the various career trajectories to becoming an anesthesiologist-scientist.
• Explore the diversity of anesthesia-related research.
• Identify important characteristics and pitfalls to avoid for becoming a successful anesthesiologist-scientist.

FAER/ARMA Sponsored Mentoring Session: Finding the Right Research Question & Path, Right Environment & Culture, and Right Mentor
Sunday, October 20 |  | 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. ET | Pennsylvania Convention Center; 201ABC

Moderator: Pamela Flood, MD, MA

Speakers: Alex S. Evers, MD

This 60-minute session will consist of two 30 minute parts. The first 30 minutes will be podium presentations with 3 speakers, discussing a topic for 10 minutes. The topics which will be covered are: 1) Finding the right research question & path (10 minutes), 2) Finding the right environment & culture (10 minutes), and 3) Finding the right mentor (10 minutes).

We will then have breakout rooms or tables with table captains who are experienced academic mentors for a more personal discussion with attendees. If you’ve ever wondered what mentors expect of trainees or wished to become a better mentor yourself, this FAER Academy of Research Mentors session run by highly successful clinician scientists is geared specifically for you. A major highlight of this panel is the opportunity for participants to hear from experts and also have small group and personal discussions.

Learning objectives for this panel include the ability to:

• Maximize the mentor mentee relationship and clarify common misperceptions about the mentor-mentee relationship.

FAER Medical Student and Resident Research Symposium
Sunday, October 20 |  | 1 – 4:15 p.m. ET | Pennsylvania Convention Center; 201ABC

MSARF Poster Presentations: 1 - 2 p.m. ET
RSP Poster Presentations: 2:45 - 3:45 p.m. ET
Awards Ceremony: 4 - 4:15 p.m. ET

Moderator: Chad M. Brummett, MD

The FAER Medical Student and Resident Research Symposium brings together FAER sponsored Medical Student Anesthesia Research Fellows (MSARF) and Resident Scholar Program (RSP) participants to present their research projects conducted in anesthesiology departments across the nation. Medical students have been directly supported by FAER for a summer-long research experience at their own or another medical university and both students are residents are required to present scholarly activity projects with strong preference for original research. Students and residents will be together for more effective networking and mentoring opportunities among young trainees in order to better expose them to major research topics in advancing the field of anesthesiology.