Message From the Chair

On behalf of all our faculty, resident, fellow, and administrative staff, welcome to University of Utah Health's Department of Anesthesiology website.  We invite you to browse the site and learn more about us.

The Department has a long tradition of excellence in clinical care, scientific investigation, and training in anesthesiology and related fields such as pain medicine, intensive care, and bioengineering.

A trio of aspirations grounds our Department's philosophical approach to governance: We strive for professional excellence, we aim to achieve optimal work-life balance, and we endeavor to treat each other like family. Achieving these aspirations in good measure creates a unique environment for professional development for all Department members.

Our number one, overarching goal is taking great care of patients. Having one's anatomy and physiology irrevocably altered by a surgical procedure is a landmark day in a person's life. We seek to be ever mindful of the privilege it is to assist patients through this critical juncture in their lives.

Our clinical services are highly focused on implementing the concept of anesthesia as “perioperative medicine.” We work to provide excellent care over the entire spectrum of perioperative time and space. Our preoperative clinic, perioperative echocardiography service, acute pain service, intensive care services, and pain management center all contribute to our ability to provide care from the time the patient is scheduled for an operation until they are rehabilitated back to health. Our services in the operating room constitute only part of our overall clinical care delivery, which stretches from the preoperative clinic, operating rooms, postoperative wards, intensive care units, and pain management center. Our clinical services are especially notable for excellence in perioperative echocardiography, acute pain management, total intravenous anesthesia, and regional anesthesia for ambulatory procedures, among others.

Our training mission is another important focus of Department energy and dedication. Our residency training program attracts exceedingly competitive medical student applicants. Our highly sought after residents mature into top notch clinicians who practice anesthesia at the highest level in both academic and private settings. A certified high-fidelity simulation center, well organized didactic program, and widely acclaimed perioperative echocardiography curriculum are among the unique educational offerings that help create such great clinicians.

The Department’s research enterprise, while highly diverse, is perhaps best known for our long history of entrepreneurially oriented research and product commercialization. The Department currently has a half dozen thriving official University of Utah spin-off companies, each of which has products that have achieved regulatory clearance and a measure of market receptivity. Our translational research efforts related to total intravenous anesthesia, regional anesthesia, bioengineering, and pain management have changed anesthesia practice in important ways nationally and internationally.

Our mission is excellence in clinical care, training, and scientific investigation in anesthesiology and allied fields. We invite you to visit us to discover why the University of Utah Department of Anesthesiology is achieving these missions with distinction, and why the Department is a terrific place to live and work as an anesthesiologist.