With pain being commonly stated as a reason for presentation to the emergency department (ED) and the advent of the opioid crisis in the United States, regional anesthesia has been gaining prominence as an alternative treatment for acute pain in emergency medicine. However, to this date, there is no widely agreed-upon and standardized training regimen for regional anesthesia in emergency medicine residency programs. In this paper, we set out to define elements of competency for a residency program in a large academic tertiary center and to create a protocol for resident training that could be easily replicated, with a secondary goal of increasing the frequency of nerve blocks in the ED. We also aimed to discuss a curriculum that has been shown to improve resident comfortability with the fascia iliaca compartment block (FICB). This led to a substantial increase in nerve blocks performed in the ED. However, we also demonstrate a loss of retention at six months, indicating that further curriculum refinements will be needed to promote longitudinal retention of knowledge.
Keywords: emergency medicine; hip fracture; nerve block; pain management; regional anesthesia; resident education.
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