Preface:

A long time ago, in a medical galaxy far, far away, med-ical education was a simple matter of apprenticeship: • You washed up on the shores of a residency. • For three years, you did anesthesia. • The residency released you into the wild, with the admonition, to ye forth and minister anesthesia unto the people.” But, alas, as time passed, the educational process grew in complexity. Enter the Core Clinical Competencies. Wise men and women gathered themselves to-gether and reconsidered the apprenticeship idea. And thusly they spake, The doctors know not of what they teach. They are misguided and errant in their ways. For them to teach unto their young charges, they must teach as we, the wise men and women of education, feel you must teach.” And the wise men and women of education climbed a great mountain, to seek commandments. They sought 10, but found they only 6. And these six commandments, they were writ in stone and given unto the wise men and women of education. From the mountain came they down, bearing six command-ments with them. And they showed these six com-mandments to all who would teach doctors the art of healing the halt and lame. And the teachers of doctors became sore afraid. And the teachers of doctors asked, “Whence came these commandments, which we of needs must now employ as we teach the young doctors?” So the wise men and women of education said, “Ye are not put on this earth to question the com-mandments given from on high.
Ye are to obey the six commandments in all your teaching, and ye are to spend all the hours of the day and all the hours of the night documenting that ye are teaching via the com-mandments. All those who disobey will be cast aside and their residencies shuttered, their hospitals razed unto the ground, so that one brick no longer lies upon another, and the ground thereon to be sown with salt, so nothing there shall ever grow again.” And the teachers of doctors trembled before the men and women of education. And these same teach-ers rent their garments and gnashed their teeth, crying out, “Woe is us, that the daytime and the nighttime will be filled with documenting all we say and all we do. So great is the fury of the men and women of education that we will live all the years of our lives in fear and loathing and documenting.” Night fell. The sun rose the next day. “Ah, what is this on Amazon.com?” a teacher of doctors cried out. “A book, a book which reviews anes-thesia cases via the Core Clinical Competencies! As manna from heaven fed those who wandered through the desert, so also this book from three residency directors will feed those who wander through the Core Clinical Competency land. Yea, verily, this is a boon to medical students, residents, and teachers alike.” And great was the happiness. And now, as you read on, so also will your happi-ness be great For first we shall review the Core Clinical Compe-tencies, and we shall show ye how these selfsame Core Clinical Competencies are viewed through the prism of anesthesia. Then we will leave off the Jabber, for we seek not to be as the cackling of hens or the screeching of monkeys. We will go us forth into actual cases, cases we have done ourselves, and we will explain these cases with great and terrible emphasis on the Core Clinical Competencies. And lo, your understanding will grow mightily. And you will use this knowledge to minister unto those who are afflicted by the thousand and one ills that flesh Is heir to. And when a dark cloud appears upon the hori-zon, and a great crash of thunder is heard, and the Four Horsemen of the Residency Review Committee