News and Events
September 2009
4th All Africa Anaesthesia Congress
Imagine a country in Africa with only one anesthesia physician in a population of three to five million people. Or a more developed African country with one anesthesia physician for each million residents. This lack of anesthesiologists is the reality for many of the 54 countries and over one billion people who reside in Africa. To address this and other challenges facing anesthesiologists in Africa, the Johns Hopkins Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine will co-sponsor the 4th All Africa Anaesthesia Congress (AAAC), created to address pain, anesthesia and critical care medicine issues within Africa.
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August 2009
Dr. Merritt Honored by International Liver Transplantation Society
Dr. William Merritt M.D., associate professor of anesthesiology and head of the liver transplant anesthesia team at Johns Hopkins since 1987, recently received the Distinguished Service Award from the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS) at their annual meeting, this year in New York City. He is one of the five original founders of the Society, served as its first Secretary/Treasurer, and was President of the ILTS from 1999-2001.
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Wilmer Eye Institute's New Home
The Wilmer Eye Institute begins a whole new era with the opening of the new $105 milllion Robert H. and Clarice Smith Building. Home to six of the most modern ophthalmic operating rooms in the world, Wilmer’s new home is now capable of performing 50 percent more procedures each day. With five floors dedicated to research, Wilmer has also more than doubled the space for what is already the largest eye-related research program in the country.
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July 2009
Saying Hello and Goodbye in 2009
Every summer, the Johns Hopkins Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine bids an emotional farewell to its graduating residents and fellows at the annual Graduation Dinner. Then, without missing a beat, the entire department celebrates the arrival of the newest class of anesthesiology residents and fellows. It is a very busy yet wonderful time in the seasonal life of the Department. In a whirlwind, the newest residents are outfitted in green scrubs and working shoulder to shoulder with some of the giants in their future specialty. It is a time when the intense dedication of the faculty to the department’s teaching mission is unmistakable.
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June 2009
Biennial Meeting Inaugural Webcast
This year marked a major technology shift for the Department, as the Biennial Program moved onto the world wide web platform. For the first time, as familiar faculty faces drifted into the Garrett Room to hear the presentations in person, they also heard Director John Ulatowski warmly greet a new, virtual global audience during a live webcast of the event. Webcasting the entire event this year made it possible for busy clinicians, educators and researchers to watch either the live event in part, or its entirety, or to opt to view the archive webcast based on their own schedules. It also opened up the Dome’s historic doors for alumni or anyone with a pc and an internet connection, inviting all to join the prestigious event.
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Dr. Donald W. Benson: A Remarkable Man Honored by a Remarkable Family
By all accounts, it would not be a stretch to characterize the late Dr. Donald W. Benson as a Renaissance Man. Family members and colleagues describe him as prodigious in an array of eclectic endeavors. He was a scholar, a doctor, a tenor, an inventor, and an artisan. He was extraordinarily talented, but extremely humble.
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May 2009
Jennifer K. Lee, M.D. Receives
FAER Research Fellowship Grant
Dr. Jennifer K. Lee, a clinical fellow in Johns Hopkins Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, was recently awarded a one-year $75,000 FAER Research Fellowship Grant, one of nine grants approved by the FAER Board of Directors in April 2009 to support the research of promising anesthesiologists.
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Anesthesiology Ties To 2009
Medicine and Graduate School Graduates
May brings with it a much anticipated rite of passage, the annual Class Graduation for Medicine and Graduate schools. This year, teaching medical students and mentoring graduate students in Anesthesiology laboratories yielded some remarkable fruit for our Department Faculty and Residents and Johns Hopkins Medicine.
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April 2009
Grand Rounds Video Presentation
Debra Anne Schwinn, M.D., Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology, Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology and Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, delivered Anesthesiology Grand Rounds on Thursday, April 30th. Dr. Schwinn’s lecture, "Perioperative Genomics: Defining the Vulnerable Patient," was broadcast live to the Hopkins community and is now viewable in the ACCM archives. Click the following link to view Dr. Schwinn's Grand Rounds Presentation. Launch Media Player >>
Hopkins Leadership Development Program Proves Trailblazers Come In All Personality Types
One of the hallmarks of the Leadership Development Program is the overnight retreat held in the beginning of the year where the class begins to bond. Before the session, each participant takes a half-dozen personality and other assessments. “What leadership development theory tells you is that it’s really important for people to have a lot of very accurate personal information about themselves so that they know who they are,” says Linda Dillon Jones, learning and development consultant in Talent Management and Organization Development. Nominated anonymously for the highly competitive program, Anesthesiology Associate Professor Dolores Njoku was struck when she saw the data charting her class’s personality types. “They were all different,” she says. “That’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to be cookie cutter.”
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March 2009
Magnet Program at Hopkins Supports Certified Nurses Day
The Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine recently celebrated Certified Nurses Day with special recognition for these talented and dedicated members of the Hopkins patient care team family. Magnet-recognized health care facilities around the country supported the annual day of recognition for their Certified Nursing staff. The Magnet Recognition Program encourages health care organizations to promote continuous learning and certification among their nursing staff.
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Nishant A. Gandhi Named 2009 FAER Resident Scholar
When the Johns Hopkins Anesthesiology faculty, fellows and residents gather at one of the most important national conferences this fall, one lucky resident will be hopping a plane to join them in New Orleans by special invitation. First year resident, Nishant A. Gandhi, was recently named as a 2009 Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER) Resident Scholar, an impressive honor that comes with an invitation to join in the Annual ASA Meeting in October. Attending a national meeting as a first year resident will offer Gandhi a window into the world of anesthesiology beyond the doors of Hopkins, one that he will enter following graduation.
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Historic Grand Rounds With Our First Resident
Dr. Merel Harmel is a man synonymous with the word “first.” He became the first Anesthesiology resident at Johns Hopkins in 1945. He received the first National Research Council Fellowship in Anesthesiology, for which he left Hopkins to go to the University of Pennsylvania. He also founded the first Anesthesia Department at three separate universities: State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center (1952), the University of Chicago (1968), and Duke University (1971). And the first for which Harmel is probably most well known was his participation in the first Blalock-Taussig shunt procedure. While in the 11th month of his residency at Hopkins, Harmel acted as the anesthesiologist for this novel procedure pioneered by surgeon Alfred Blalock, cardiologist Helen Taussig, and assistant Vivien Thomas. The operation was developed to shunt blood to the lungs in children with tetralogy of Fallot, also known as “blue babies.”
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February 2009
Pronovost Joins Surgeon General In Call to Arms On DVT
The Johns Hopkins Hospital is taking a closer look at how to prevent deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), a potentially fatal but highly preventable medical condition it sees as a top patient safety issue. Sharing the latest research and information on DVT, colleagues, patients and their family members, and the public joined together in March for the first annual DVT Symposium. The Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine’s own patient safety expert, Peter Pronovost, was a featured speaker with a talk entitled “DVT in a National Patient Safety Framework.”
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PeriAnesthesia Nurse Awareness Week
During PeriAnesthesia Nurse Awareness Week, February 2nd - 8th, the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine recognizes the outstanding contribution of the Johns Hopkins Surgical Preparation and Post Anesthesia Care Unit nurses. Hopkins PeriAnesthesia nurses practice in all phases of preanesthesia and postanesthesia care, ambulatory surgery, pain management, and special procedure areas. Please join us in saying a special thank you this week to our PeriAnesthesia nurses.
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January 2009
Homecoming for Medical Mission Team
A team of Hopkins anesthesiology residents and faculty returned from their second annual medical mission to Asmara, Eritrea. The mission was a collaboration between two organizations: Physicians for Peace and Doctor's United Medical Missions (DRUMM). DRUMM is an organization led by John Sampson, M.D., Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, who has been active in medical missions to Africa for several years.
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Proven. Professional. Passionate.
As the hands-on providers of more than 30 million anesthetics delivered in the United States each year, CRNAs touch the lives of countless patients and their families annually. In honor of this responsibility and privilege, and to celebrate a sterling record of patient safety that extends back to the late 1800s, nurse anesthetists all across America celebrate National Nurse Anesthetists Week every year in January.
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