Lifelong labor pays off for new OB Anesthesia medical director
As a child she watched open-heart surgeries on television, fascinated by the functioning of the human body and the surgeon’s ability to help it, heal it, know it. Her dream of becoming a physician rooted early and never wavered.
Today, Erin Flannery, DO, is Good Samaritan’s new medical director of OB Anesthesia.
"I love OB anesthesia. It is a much different opportunity in our anesthesia profession. Taking care of mom is 100-percent our focus in and out of the OR, and she's awake!" Flannery said. "She's excited and scared, nervous and brave, and we're right there with her during one of the most important times in her life, helping her and providing pain relief. It's very rewarding."
A Colorado native, Flannery looks back on her training and is proud and grateful to say the Centennial State “always stepped up.” Out of high school, she applied to pre-med programs across the country before landing at Regis University in Denver for undergrad and, for the entire course of her medical training, never left the state.
Her vision for her career sharpened while she was a medical student at Rocky Vista University in Parker, Colo.
“Very early on, you learn precisely who you are,” she said. “I liked my acute care rotation, but then I really liked my surgical rotation, which is just like a mini-ICU – you and a patient and everything you need for that patient. That was my first exposure to anesthesia and its power to instantaneously affect care. It snagged me.”
The next four years took her through Internal Medicine and Anesthesia residency programs at Saint Joseph Hospital and the University of Colorado. Flannery joined the Good Samaritan medical staff immediately after, in 2019. Until May, she was providing care in Surgery.
“Good Samaritan’s OB deck is a good place for our group and a prime opportunity to standardize and streamline care and processes for our teams and our patients,” she said. “We like to protocolize things, using evidence-based methods to reduce variables.”
The new model Flannery oversees calls for an anesthesiologist and a CRNA providing care as a team. There will be an anesthesia presence on Labor & Delivery 24/7, with the same 10 physicians in her practice covering both the OR and Labor & Delivery, as needed. The primary OB team also includes four CRNAs.
When not in the hospital, Flannery spends her free time in the mountains with her family as a year-round outdoor adventurer. She and her husband have two children, a one-year-old and a three-year-old – the latter just a few years shy of his mom’s age when she first saw an image on TV that would shape the path of her life.
Flannery and her family
“I love it, love it,” she said. “This incredible career in this beautiful state with my whole family here, I’m very lucky and very happy.”
Physicians who would like to reach out to Flannery about anesthesia care on Labor & Delivery can reach her via email at eflannery@ncaphealth.com.