Anesthesiology: Is there a future?

Date: December 5, 2008
Time: Noon - 1 p.m.
Location: Scaife Hall 4th Floor - Lecture Room 3

Dr. John Williams is the Peter and Eva Safar Professor of Anesthesiology and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine. He was named to that post in 2002.

Dr. Williams has dedicated his career to education and research with a clinical emphasis on cardiac illness and cardiac surgery in specific. He has previously served as the chief at Presbyterian Hospital from 1999 to 2001 and as interim chair from 2001 to 2002. He has also served as the director of cardiac anesthesiology and co-director of intensive care at UCLA, and spent his formative years in the laboratory of Dr. Glenn Laine (UT Houston) investigating and defining the role of cardiaclymphatic vessels in a variety of physiologic states.

Dr. Williams was instrumental in the creation of the Department of Critical Care Medicine (formerly a division of the Department of Anesthesiology) and has since turned his attention to the development of a clinical and research basis for the understanding and treatment of pain and pain-related states. This has involved the creation of the new Pittsburgh Comprehensive Pain Center, in collaboration with the Division of GI Medicine, Department of Medicine, and the Department of Neurobiology. This center is now run by world-renowned investigator Dr. Gerald Gebhart and is partnered with a translational component in the Molecular Epidemiology of Pain Program that was headed by Dr. Mitchell Max until his untimely death.

Dr. Williams has further developmental plans for pain medicine and pain research at the University of Pittsburgh, which will be discussed at this lecture.

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