December 2019
We are proud to announce that Romain Pirracchio, MD, PhD, has been appointed the Ronald D. Miller Distinguished Professor in Anesthesia and Perioperative Care at UCSF. Dr. Pirraacchio is the Chief of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
He received his medical degree in 1999 from Lariboisiere Medical School, Paris Diderot University, before completing a fellowship in critical care at Hôpital Lariboisière from 2003-2005, where he subsequently joined the faculty. In 2012, Dr. Pirracchio also received a doctoral degree in epidemiology and biostatistics at Paris Diderot University, then completed a postdoc in biostatistics at UC Berkeley in 2013.
Dr. Pirracchio was an Assistant Professor in Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou at Paris Descartes University from 2005-2010 before assuming the role of Head of the Surgical & Trauma Critical Care team at the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou at Paris Descartes University from 2010-2013. Dr. Pirracchio achieved the highest French academic degree of Habilitation in 2014.
Dr. Ronald D. Miller was raised in Indiana and received both his undergraduate and medical degrees from Indiana University. He completed an internship at Riverside County Hospital in Southern CA, where a large portion of his patients were women.
Arriving in San Francisco in 1964 to interview for a position in the UCSF Anesthesia Residency (where the Republican National Convention happened to be in full swing, causing many traffic issues!), Miller recalls that he didn’t know much about the department, except that its chair, Dr. Stuart Cullen, had authored a well-regarded, albeit small, anesthesia textbook. Ironically, Miller would go on to author and edit the most highly regarded and widely read anesthesia textbook in the field, “Miller’s Anesthesia,” now in its 9th edition.
During Dr. Miller’s anesthesia residency, it became clear that he would need to enlist to serve in the Vietnam War. After his graduation in 1968, Miller was sent to Da Nang, where he would perform his seminal work on massive blood transfusions, for which he received a Bronze Star with a Combat Star and was also inducted into the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine) in 1998.
Upon returning from his tour, Miller began work monitoring neuromuscular function in study patients given isoflurane. From there, his work on the interaction of volatile anesthetics and muscle relaxants evolved, and over the next thirty years, he and the many talented residents he would attract played a central role in understanding the pharmacokinetics and dynamics of muscle relaxants and their antagonists.
In 1984, after an international search, Miller succeeded Dr. William K. Hamilton as the UCSF Anesthesia Department Chair, a position he would hold for the next 25 years, seeing the department through enormous growth and its joyous 50th anniversary celebration. During his tenure, Miller implemented a broad and strategic approach, cementing the department’s status at the forefront of the profession. He called for an outside evaluation of the department’s research program to ensure UCSF would stay ahead of the curve. He aligned the department with the hospital’s goals, and built on the strong and respectful working relationship with surgery that his predecessor Dr. Hamilton had established. Miller also oversaw a complete revamping of the department’s finances, developing rigorous systems for professional fee billing that are still in place today.
In addition, he was tirelessly responsive to external change. As more anesthesia sub-specialties emerged, in the tradition of his predecessors Miller continued to recruit the best faculty and fellows in the world to establish those sub-specialties at UCSF. As changes in health care financing and delivery fostered changes in hospital stays, Miller oversaw the establishment of adult and pediatric pre-operative clinics, as well as a comprehensive chronic pain clinic, under the department’s watchful eye. Finally, even when there were brief downturns in the number of applicants for anesthesia residencies nationwide, UCSF continued to attract the most, the best, and the brightest. Since stepping down as Chair of the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care at UCSF in 2008, Dr. Miller has maintained an active research program.