Anesthesia and Critical Care Reviews and Commentary (ACCRAC) Podcast Episode 319: Master Clinician Part 9: Dr. Michaela Farber
Oct 18, 2025
Dr. Michaela Farber, the inaugural Chief of Obstetric Anesthesiology at Mass General Brigham and an associate professor at Harvard, shares insights from her extensive career in OB anesthesia. She discusses the importance of fellowship training for improving maternal care and outcomes, the impact of rising clinical complexity, and lessons learned from mentoring fellows. Notably, she emphasizes using music to alleviate preoperative anxiety and highlights critical interventions for hemorrhage management, including the importance of safety habits among clinicians.
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Kickstart Fellowship Research From Day One
- Identify each fellow's specific curiosity early to fuel productivity during a short fellowship year.
- Break research into manageable chunks and pair fellows with experienced mentors for rapid, meaningful projects.
Fellowship Training Improves OB Care
- Fellowship-trained OB anesthesiologists manage complex cases more frequently and may improve patient outcomes like lower general anesthesia rates.
- Increasing maternal comorbidities and conditions (eg placenta accreta, cardiac disease) make specialized OB training increasingly valuable.
Catheter Threading Fails Are Common
- Fellow Hans Wiggum tracked thousands of epidural placements and found ~5% incidence of catheters that won't thread.
- He showed restarting and re-puncturing had lower wet-tap rates than forceful maneuvers, guiding safer handling.
