Allison Lee Thoeny
- Associate Clinical Professor, Anesthesiology - (Clinical Series Track)
Contact
- (520) 626-7221
- AHSC, Rm. 2301
- TUCSON, AZ 85724-5099
- athoeny@arizona.edu
Degrees
- M.D. Doctor of Medicine
- University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States
- B.S. Psychology
- University of Arizona, Tucson, United States
Awards
- COM-T Specialty Advisor Award in Anesthesiology
- University of Arizona College of MedicineTucson, AZ, Spring 2023
- Outstanding Educator of the Year
- Department of Anesthesiology University of Arizona College of Medicine Tucson, AZ, Spring 2023
- Department of Anesthesiology Residency Program, Spring 2021
- Certificate of Appreciation
- University of Arizona Department of Anesthesiology, Spring 2020
- University of Arizona Department of Anesthesiology, Spring 2019
Licensure & Certification
- Board Certification, American Board of Anesthesiologist (2018)
- Physician License, State of Arizona (2018)
- Physician License, State of California (2015)
Interests
No activities entered.
Courses
No activities entered.
Scholarly Contributions
Chapters
- Thoeny, A., Hadaya, I. A., & Lobo, E. P. (2020). Anesthesia in Head and Neck Surgery. In Current Diagnosis & Treatment Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery, Fourth Edition(pp 201-226). McGraw-Hill Education.
- Thoeny, A., Hadaya, I., & Lobo, E. (2020). Anesthesia in Head and Neck Surgery. In LANGE Current Diagnosis & Treatment Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Fourth Edition(pp 201-226). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Journals/Publications
- Thoeny, A. (2023).
The Weight of Stewardship
. Anesthesiology. doi:10.1097/ALN.0000000000004682 - Thoeny, A. (2023). Iliocaval occlusion treated with angioplasty in a 1,500-g infant. . Journal of Vascular Radiology, 34, 1856-1857. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvir.2023.05.029.
- Tovar, A. R., & Thoeny, A. L. (2020). Unveiling what is absent within: illustrating anesthetic considerations in a patient with hydranencephaly – a case report. BMC Anesthesiology. doi:10.1186/s12871-020-01142-3More infoHydranencephaly is a rare and debilitating congenital condition in which most anesthesiologists are unfamiliar. Primary surgical treatment involves CSF diversion, though other palliative procedures requiring anesthesia are often required. With medical advancements and a resulting prolonged life expectancy, caring for these patients is becoming more routine. We follow an infant with hydranencephaly over three different procedures requiring anesthesia from 5 months of age to 2 years, highlighting the various anesthetic considerations. Anticipation of difficult positioning, deliberate airway management, and attention to anesthetic recovery were all necessary to safely care for this patient. An understanding of the challenges this particular condition poses will help anesthesiologists provide the most safe and effective care when encountering these patients.
- Tovar, A. R., & Thoeny, A. L. (2020). Unveiling what is absent within: illustrating anesthetic considerations in a patient with hydranencephaly - a case report. BMC anesthesiology, 20(1), 224.More infoHydranencephaly is a rare and debilitating congenital condition in which most anesthesiologists are unfamiliar. Primary surgical treatment involves CSF diversion, though other palliative procedures requiring anesthesia are often required. With medical advancements and a resulting prolonged life expectancy, caring for these patients is becoming more routine.
- Le, S., Thoeny, A., Lo, C., & Kim, E. (2019). An Unlikely Airway Foreign Body: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention. Anesthesiology, 130(4), 614.
- Thoeny, A. L., Kim, E. S., Lo, C., & Le, S. H. (2019). An Unlikely Airway Foreign Body. Anesthesiology. doi:10.1097/00000542-900000000-96692More infoCase report
- Thoeny, A. L. (2018). Beginning a Career in Anesthesia: Women Entering the Anesthesiology Workforce in the 21st Century. International anesthesiology clinics, 56(3), 5-20.
- Thoeny, A. L. (2017). Still Beauty. Anesthesiology, 127(5), 893-893. doi:10.1097/aln.0000000000001822
- Thoeny, A. L., Hadaya, I. A., Lancman, B. M., & Lew, V. (2017). Hitting the Nail on the Head: A Case Report Demonstrating the Importance of a Multidisciplinary Approach to an Unusual Penetrating Intracranial Injury. A & A case reports, 9(7), 212-215.More infoA 28-year-old man presented with a penetrating injury by a nail gun to the head. Imaging revealed a nail abutting the superior sagittal sinus without active extravasation. An anesthesia-led multidisciplinary team devised a detailed perioperative plan including conception of a complex decision tree, coordination of care, and resource utilization. In the operating room, the nail was removed under general anesthesia, with blood products and equipment for craniotomy readily available, and imaging modalities reserved for immediate use. This case highlights the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to challenging penetrating head injuries and the crucial role anesthesiologists have as leaders in perioperative care.
- Scheres, A., Tontsch, C., Thoeny, A. L., & Sumiya, M. (2014). Temporal reward discounting in children, adolescents, and emerging adults during an experiential task. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 711.More infoThe goal of this study was to examine age effects on the ability/willingness to wait for large rewards in a real temporal reward discounting task from childhood to adulthood. Therefore, a real temporal discounting (TD) task was administered to children aged 6-12 (n = 39), adolescents aged 13-17 (n = 28), and young adults aged 18-19 (n = 55). Findings indicated that the cross-sectional development of TD followed a quadratic pattern across age groups, with adolescents choosing more often than children and adults to wait for the large delayed reward, resulting in reward-maximization. Various interpretations of this finding were offered, including a focus on reward maximization despite an immature ability to exert self-control, and flexible self-control which was high during this task as a result of strong motivation to maximize financial gains.
- Thoeny, A. L., Sumiya, M., Tontsch, C., & Scheres, A. (2014). Temporal reward discounting in children, adolescents, and emerging adults during an experiential task. Frontiers in Psychology. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00711More infoThe goal of this study was to examine age effects on the ability/willingness to wait for large rewards in a real temporal reward discounting task from childhood to adulthood. Therefore, a real temporal discounting task was administered to children aged 6-12 (n=39), adolescents aged 13-17 (n=28), and young adults aged 18-19 (n=55). Findings indicated that the cross-sectional development of real temporal discounting followed a quadratic pattern across age groups, with adolescents choosing more often than children and adults to wait for the large delayed reward, resulting in reward-maximization. Various interpretations of this finding were offered, including a focus on reward maximization despite an immature ability to exert self-control, and flexible self-control which was high during this task as a result of strong motivation to maximize financial gains.
- Scheres, A., Tontsch, C., & Thoeny, A. L. (2013). Steep temporal reward discounting in ADHD-Combined type: acting upon feelings. Psychiatry research, 209(2), 207-13.More infoDifficulty waiting plays a primary role in symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in particular, impulsivity. Current theories suggest that relatively strong preferences for small immediate rewards as observed in ADHD-Combined type are the result of delay-related negative feelings. However, the measurement of difficulty waiting is typically limited to objective choices between small immediate and large delayed rewards. This study aimed at extending the measurement of difficulty waiting in ADHD-Combined type with ratings about subjective feelings. Children and adolescents (ages 6-17) with ADHD-Combined type (n=25), ADHD-Inattentive type (n=20) and matched typically developing participants (n=37) performed temporal reward discounting tasks, and completed a Visual Analogue Scale of subjectively experienced ease/difficulty waiting. Although those with ADHD-Combined type demonstrated relatively steep temporal reward discounting, as reported elsewhere (Scheres et al., 2010), there were no group differences for subjectively experienced ease/difficulty waiting. Additionally, correlations between subjective and objective measures of difficulty waiting were significantly higher in the ADHD-Combined type group than in the control group. These findings suggest that (a) those with ADHD-Combined type do not choose impulsively because they have more negative feelings about waiting than controls; (b) choices in the ADHD-Combined type group are more in accordance with/driven by their feelings than choices made by participants in the control group.
- Thoeny, A. L., Tontsch, C., & Scheres, A. (2013). Steep temporal reward discounting in ADHD-Combined type: Acting upon feelings. Psychiatry Research-neuroimaging. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2012.12.007More infoDifficulty waiting plays a primary role in symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in particular, impulsivity. Current theories suggest that relatively strong preferences for small immediate rewards as observed in ADHD-Combined type are the result of delay-related negative feelings. However, the measurement of difficulty waiting is typically limited to objective choices between small immediate and large delayed rewards. This study aimed at extending the measurement of difficulty waiting in ADHD-Combined type with ratings about subjective feelings. Children and adolescents (ages 6-17) with ADHD-Combined type (n=25), ADHD-Inattentive type (n=20) and matched typically developing participants (n=37) performed temporal reward discounting tasks, and completed a Visual Analogue Scale of subjectively experienced ease/difficulty waiting. Although those with ADHD-Combined type demonstrated relatively steep temporal reward discounting, as reported elsewhere (Scheres et al., 2010), there were no group differences for subjectively experienced ease/difficulty waiting. Additionally, correlations between subjective and objective measures of difficulty waiting were significantly higher in the ADHD-Combined type group than in the control group. These findings suggest that (a) those with ADHD-Combined type do not choose impulsively because they have more negative feelings about waiting than controls; (b) choices in the ADHD-Combined type group are more in accordance with/driven by their feelings than choices made by participants in the control group.
- Scheres, A., Sumiya, M., & Thoeny, A. L. (2010). Studying the relation between temporal reward discounting tasks used in populations with ADHD: a factor analysis. International journal of methods in psychiatric research, 19(3), 167-76.More infoThis study aimed at investigating the relationship between tasks that have been used in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to measure choices between smaller immediate and larger delayed rewards: real and hypothetical temporal discounting tasks, and single-choice paradigms.
- Scheres, A., Tontsch, C., Thoeny, A. L., & Kaczkurkin, A. (2010). Temporal reward discounting in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: the contribution of symptom domains, reward magnitude, and session length. Biological psychiatry, 67(7), 641-8.More infoTheoretical models have hypothesized that one core problem in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is abnormal reward processing. Temporal reward discounting (decreases in subjective reward value due to prereward delay) is of interest because of its relation with a key symptom of ADHD-impulsivity. This study investigated 1) whether steep temporal reward discounting (TD) is associated with ADHD-combined type (ADHD-C)/symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity specifically; 2) the role of reward magnitude in TD in ADHD-C/participants with symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity; and 3) whether steep TD in ADHD-C/participants with symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity is affected by session length.
- Thoeny, A. L., Kaczkurkin, A. N., Tontsch, C., & Scheres, A. (2010). Temporal Reward Discounting in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: The Contribution of Symptom Domains, Reward Magnitude, and Session Length. Biological Psychiatry. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.10.033More infoTheoretical models have hypothesized that one core problem in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is abnormal reward processing. Temporal reward discounting (decreases in subjective reward value due to prereward delay) is of interest because of its relation with a key symptom of ADHD-impulsivity. This study investigated 1) whether steep temporal reward discounting (TD) is associated with ADHD-combined type (ADHD-C)/symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity specifically; 2) the role of reward magnitude in TD in ADHD-C/participants with symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity; and 3) whether steep TD in ADHD-C/participants with symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity is affected by session length.Three TD tasks were administered to children and adolescents (aged 6-17) with ADHD-C (n = 25), ADHD-inattentive type (ADHD-I; n = 20), and matched typically developing participants (n = 37). Reward magnitude and session length were varied.Steep TD was observed in participants with ADHD-C but not in those with ADHD-I, independent of reward magnitude and session length. Dimensional analyses revealed that steep TD was associated with hyperactivity-impulsivity (transcending the arbitrary cutoff for ADHD subtypes), especially when reward magnitude at the trial level was small.These findings suggest that steep TD in ADHD is best thought of as a correlate of the symptom dimension of hyperactivity/impulsivity. Additionally, steep TD in ADHD is the result of a trade-off between delay and reward magnitude, with all factors contributing to choice preferences. These findings may help refine the delay aversion theory of ADHD, and provide evidence for the notion that unique reward processing is one mechanism associated with symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity.
- Thoeny, A. L., Sumiya, M., & Scheres, A. (2010). Studying the relation between temporal reward discounting tasks used in populations with ADHD: A factor analysis. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. doi:10.1002/mpr.309More infoThis study aimed at investigating the relationship between tasks that have been used in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to measure choices between smaller immediate and larger delayed rewards: real and hypothetical temporal discounting tasks, and single-choice paradigms.Participants were 55 undergraduate psychology students. Tasks included a real and hypothetical version of a temporal discounting (TD) task with choices between a large reward (10 cents) after delays up to 60 seconds, and smaller immediate rewards (2-8 cents); two versions of a hypothetical temporal discounting task with choices between a large reward ($100) after delays up to 120 months, and smaller immediate rewards ($1-$95); a Choice Delay Task with choices between one point now and two points after 30 seconds (one point is worth five cents).Correlation analyses showed that the real and the hypothetical TD tasks with 10 cents were very strongly associated. However, the hypothetical TD tasks with $100 did not correlate with either the real or the hypothetical TD task with 10 cents. Principal component analysis extracted two components: one for small amounts and short delays, and a second one for large rewards and long delays.Temporal reward discounting is not a uniform construct. Functional brain imaging research could shed more light on unique brain activation patterns associated with different forms of temporal reward discounting.
Presentations
- Thoeny, A. (2023, August).
Credible Coaching and Effective Feedback for Today’s Learners: How to Move Beyond “Good Job”
- Thoeny, A. (2023, Jan). Credible Coaching and Effective Feedback for Today’s Learners: How to Move Beyond “Good Job”. Annual Meeting of the Arizona Society of Anesthesiologists. Phoenix, AZ.
- Thoeny, A. (2023, Jan). Recruiting and Training Anesthesiology Residents in the Modern Era.. Annual Meeting of the Arizona Society of Anesthesiologists. Phoenix, AZ.
- Thoeny, A. (2022, April 6). Conflict Management Strategy. Department of Anesthesiology Grand Rounds. BUMCT: University of Arizona, Department of Anesthesiology.
- Thoeny, A., & King, J. (2022, May 4). When conflict arises in the OR: teaching anesthesiology residents conflict management strategy.. Data Blitz oral presentation at College of Medicine- Tucson Research Day. Arizona Health Sciences: University of Arizona College of Medicine.
- Thoeny, A., Smith, K. W., & Clemens, C. J. (2022, April 29). Feedback- moving beyond "good job"
I authored this presentation but was unable to present it myself (on medical leave). oral presentation at College of Medicine -Tucson Graduate Medical Education Retreat. Tucson: University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson.
Poster Presentations
- Schock, S., Thoeny, A., Garcia, G., Kowalek, K. A., Price, A., & Seckeler, M. (2023, March). High rates of congenital airway anomalies in neonates with single ventricle congenital heart disease. . American College of Cardiology ACC.23/WCC Scientific Sessions. New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Seckeler, M., Price, A., Thoeny, A., Crigler, C., & June, C. (2023, March). Opening one door to close another: Treatment of severe iliocaval obstruction in a 1500g infant to allow for transcatheter PDA closure.. American College of Cardiology ACC.23/WCC Scientific Sessions. New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Thoeny, A. (2023, March). High rates of congenital airway anomalies in neonates with single ventricle congenital heart disease. . American College of Cardiology together with World Heart Federation Conference.More infoI did not present this work myself, but was a co-author for the poster
- Thoeny, A., & Taraskiewicz, D. (2022, April 30). Cesarian delivery for preeclampsia ina single ventricle parturient with a fontan physiology.. Western Anesthesia Residents' Conference. Virtual.
- Thoeny, A., & Tovar, A. (2019, May). Anesthetic management of 5 month old with hydranencephaly.. Western Anesthesia Residents’ Conference. Denver, CO: University of Colorado Department of Anesthesiology.