Drs. Adam Striker and Brooke Trainer discuss hot button issues facing the specialty today. Their lively conversation touches on the recent Anthem Blue Cross decision to propose and then rescinded a cap on anesthesia time, how the media covers anesthesiology, potential legislative solutions, and more. Recorded December 2024.
Adam Striker, MD, FASA, is the past chair of the ASA’s Committee on Communications and is the series editor for ASA’s Central Line podcast series. He is Professor of Anesthesiology at Medical College of Wisconsin, a pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist at Children’s Wisconsin and serves as Director of Clinical Operations for pediatric anesthesiology at Children's Wisconsin. He received his undergraduate degree in engineering from Purdue University and his medical degree from Indiana University. He completed his pediatric anesthesiology fellowship at Northwestern University.
Brooke E. Trainer, MD, FASA, remains devoted to her fellow Veterans and maintains her full-time status as an anesthesiologist, acute pain physician, and critical care medicine Intensivist at the Central Virginia VA Health Care System in Richmond VA. She is also an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Virginia Commonwealth University where she works as a critical care intensivist in the liver transplant and surgical trauma burn ICU. Most recently, Dr. Trainer was recognized for her contributions and interest in simulation education and was granted a national faculty position with the VHA Simulation Learning Education and Research Network (SimLEARN) Division.
Dr. Trainer received her doctor of medicine from the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, completed her anesthesia residency at Yale New Haven Medical Center in Connecticut, and fellowship in critical care medicine at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. She is a US Air Force veteran, having served as an anesthesiologist at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and director for the Critical Care Air Transport Teams (CCATT). She deployed in 2012, '13, and '14 to Afghanistan from Germany, flying wounded soldiers safely out of Afghanistan back to Germany, then home to the US. In 2012, she was recognized as the top-level physician of the European Medical Command and was awarded the US Air Force European Clinical Excellence Award. Dr. Trainer also holds several leadership positions in organized medicine, including her current role as the president for the Association of VA Anesthesiologists, and has published numerous book chapters in internationally recognized Anesthesia Textbooks.
Date of last update: January 6, 2025