Core program education: tracking the progression toward excellence in an anesthesiology residency program over 60 years.

The Ochsner Clinic Foundation Anesthesiology Residency Program is the oldest continuously accredited anesthesiology residency program in the state of Louisiana. As the American College of Graduate Medical Education has developed residency training requirements, so has the Ochsner training program evolved from a structure- and process-based program to an outcomes-based program. The author, associated with the program since 1983, reviewed Program Information Forms from 1971 to the present to track the evolution of the anesthesiology residency training program. The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education demanded allocation of resources to residency training and mandated the demonstration of outcomes of training. The Ochsner Clinic Foundation Anesthesiology Residency Program has kept pace with these demands. The trend for graduate performance on written examinations has been upward. Fifty years ago, graduates practiced locally, but graduates now practice throughout the United States. Many completed fellowship training at increasingly higher profile institutions.