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Department of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, MI, ktremper{at}umich.edu
To the Editor:
This issue of the journal includes the fourth in a series of articles that presents the results of surveys of the financial status and institutional support for United States anesthesiology training programs (1). Since the original survey in 2000, there have been progressive increases in financial support for departments from their institutions to maintain the anesthesiology departments’ financial viability (2,3). These surveys also demonstrate a wide variation in support among institutions. Because of these variations, some concern has been expressed by hospital executive officers regarding the validity of the financial data (personal communication, Dave A. Burnett, MD, Senior Vice-President, University HealthSystem Consortium, Oak Brook, IL).
To assess the accuracy of the financial support data, the following small validation survey has been conducted. The Chief Financial Officers of 10 institutions, which were included in the most recent survey, were contacted and asked the same financial support question that they had submitted to the clinical chairs of their anesthesiology departments.1 The mean and median for those same 10 departments are presented below (Table 1). Although the support dollars are not identical, the mean values are within approximately 5%. This level of agreement provides some degree of assurance that overall results of the survey are valid. Interestingly, the mean support dollars data from the chief financial officers is larger than that from the department chairs. The differences in dollar amount may be due to differences in interpreting what to include in the support from the hospital, e.g., the inclusion of graduate medical education dollars. We conclude from this small subsurvey that the survey results are most likely an accurate representation of the state of financial support of the anesthesiology training programs in the United States.
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Footnotes
1 Departments Surveyed: Brigham and Women’s, Emory, Johns Hopkins, University of Kansas, University of Florida, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, UCSF, Wake Forest. 
References
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  K. K. Tremper, A. Shanks, and M. Morris Five-Year Follow-Up on the Work Force and Finances of United States Anesthesiology Training Programs: 2000 to 2005 Anesth. Analg., April 1, 2007; 104(4): 863 - 868. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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