Stephen Matthew Klein

As an active member in the Division of Ambulatory Anesthesia Department of Anesthesiology, Duke University Medical Center, I am involved in numerous educational and research endeavors with the goal to improve a patient's peri-operative experience. The group focuses on all aspects of outpatient surgery. These include preoperative education, advanced anesthetic techniques, prolonged pain management and improving operative outcome. The division maintains an active clinical practice at the Duke Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC). The ASC is a unique academic outpatient center that administers care to over 6000 patients/year and has facilities for overnight patient observation and management. The facility, faculty and nursing consistently obtain outstanding ratings in patient care and satisfaction. As part of the educational mission of the center the division teaches resident physicians, fellows, and visiting faculty in the field of ambulatory and regional anesthesia. In addition, the center employs a full time registered nurse to coordinate, implement, and maintain the divisions protocols.

Using the divisions strength in regional anesthesia, state of the art facilities, combined with the resources of Duke University, the group has ongoing projects involved in (1) extending local anesthesia efficacy (2) development of new long acting local anesthetics (3) utilizing automated anesthesia information systems and outcomes data base to define patient outcome, satisfaction and economics (4) multi-drug therapy for reducing postoperative nausea (5) examining the efficacy of home infusion and health care for major surgery (6) redefining the scale, scope and postoperative care of ambulatory surgery.