Penafrancia Cano

MD, DPBA, FPSA, EDRA

Dr Peňafrancia Cano is currently the head of the Section of Regional Anesthesia (RA) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine-Philippine General Hospital. She was the one who spearheaded the creation of the Section of Regional Anesthesia in 2017 and later, the fellowship program in Regional Anesthesia in the same institution. She has also served as the Section Chief of Ambulatory Anesthesia from 2001 to 2008 and Orthopedic Anesthesia from 2008 to 2017. She is also presently a consultant of the Department of Anesthesiology at the Asian Hospital and Medical Center and San Juan de Dios Hospital.
Dr Cano is formerly an Associate Professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine from 1994-2001. During this period, she underwent a fellowship in Molecular Biology at the Kobe University College of Medicine in Kobe, Japan in 1996 and a year later, a fellowship training in Transplant Anesthesia at the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany. During her rotation in the latter, she became exposed to nerve stimulator nerve blocks where she developed a special interest.
Due to her desire to learn more about ultrasound and nerve stimulator guided Regional Anesthesia, she began attending workshops since 2005 in the US and Austria. She later underwent preceptorships in well recognized institutions namely Wakeforest University Medical Center at Winston Salem, North Carolina in 2007 and 2012, John H. Stroger Jr. Cook County Hospital at Chicago, Illinois in 2008, Toronto Western Hospital at Toronto, Canada in 2009, Texas Medical Center at Houston, Texas in 2010, Oregon Health and Science University at Portland, Oregon and Centre Clinical at Soyaux, France both in 2012 and at Aarhus University Hospital at Aarhus, Denmark in 2013. She also had a preceptorship with the NYSORA-Europe and Center for Research, Education and Enhanced Recovery after Orthopedic Surgery (CREER) at Zienkenhuis, Oost-Limburg, Genk, Belgium in 2016.
Dr Cano further pursued in hurdling the European Diploma in Regional Anesthesia (EDRA) from the European Society of Regional Anesthesia. She passed the written examination on September 2013 in Glasgow, Scotland and then later took the orals and the practicals a year after in Seville, Spain. She is the first to obtain the EDRA Diploma in the Philippines.
Dr Cano has directed several conferences and workshops in Regional Anesthesia all over the country. She is also a respected speaker both locally and internationally. She has been invited as a speaker in Asian and ASEAN congresses namely the Asean Congress of Anesthesia (ACA), Asian Oceanic Society of Regional Anesthesia (AOSRA), and Asian Australasian Congress of Anesthesia (AACA) to name a few. She also worked as a faculty of NYSORA-Asia and NYSORA World Anesthesia Congress (NWAC) in Rome, Bangkok and Vienna. She has also been invited as a speaker and faculty during the World Congress of Regional Anesthesia (WCRAPT) in Cape Town, South Africa in 2015 and the World Congress of Anesthesia in Hong Kong last 2016. Dr Cano is one of the co-founders of RA-Asia and has been a part of its faculty since 2012.
In her aspiration to propagate RA in the country, she dedicates her time in teaching the fellows and residents the techniques in performing nerve blocks. She is also actively involved in holding webinars and in planning the intensive short course in regional anesthesia through MARA.