Perhaps you’ve considered getting involved in humanitarian work in low-resource settings, but you have lots of questions about what to expect.

Anesthesiologists have long taken the lead in improving intraoperative patient safety. However, now is the time to take the lead in improving patient safety throughout the perioperative period.

Michael Abrashoff was faced with taking one of the worst-performing ships in the U.S. Navy and completely changing its culture with the same crew and no power over the budget. It is easy to compare that situation to similar dilemmas health care professionals face at their institutions, and on Saturday morning, Abrashoff explained how to tackle such a tough job.

Physician anesthesiologists are constantly battered by conventional economic wisdom. Focusing on turnover time will improve O.R. throughput. Anesthesia providers prefer longer surgeries because anesthesia revenue includes time. Moving from physician-only staffing to medical-direction staffing will reduce staffing costs. Per-provider benchmarks based on FTEs allow accurate comparisons of productivity.

Dealing with life-and-death situations in the O.R. can be stressful, taking their toll over the course of time. Counteracting that stress could be achieved by learning to be resilient, a theory that was the subject of a Problem-Based Learning Discussion (PBLD) Saturday.

The companies that exhibit at the ANESTHESIOLOGY annual meeting each year contribute greatly to its success. Their support is crucial to the vitality and viability of the meeting experience. The Daily News asked Connection Center attendees what brought them to the exhibit hall.

In its attempts to improve health care and reduce its cost, CMS is redesigning its reimbursement system to incentivize the quality of care instead of the volume of care. Monday’s FAER Helrich Research Lecture will address the limitations of quality measurement and whether payment reform will lead to better patient outcomes.

Nine abstracts chosen as the best basic science papers submitted for the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2015 annual meeting will be presented Sunday. They address pulmonary physiology, the molecular mechanisms of anesthetic function, neuroprotection, the consequences of pain and burn injuries. These presentations complement Saturday’s more clinically oriented “Best of Abstracts” session.

The path to becoming an independent scientific investigator will be explained for both mentors and trainees during the “FAER Academy of Research Mentors Workshop,” tomorrow from 2:10 to 4:10 p.m. in Hall H.