2015
For more than half a century, the UCSF Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care has been making groundbreaking clinical discoveries and training generations of leaders in both academic anesthesia (24 chairpersons to date) and private practice.
Much of our department’s success has grown from the vision of our first three chairs: Stuart C. Cullen, William K. Hamilton and Ronald D. Miller. All three believed that anesthesia was in a unique position to conduct important clinical research – and that doing so would draw the best and brightest to our specialty. And they were right.
Yet at a time of intense healthcare change and reduced availability of research support, maintaining this tradition and the department’s international leadership requires carving out a position where someone can dedicate themselves fully to these pursuits. Thus we are redoubling our efforts to raise $2,500,000 to establish the Ronald D. Miller Distinguished Professorship of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care.
The pursuit of excellence – the title of Dr. Miller’s 2009 Rovenstine Lecture to the ASA – has been the lodestar of Dr. Miller’s career, a highlight of which was his election to the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences in 1998. His research contribution began with the historic clinical research he initiated in a combat hospital during the Vietnam Conflict in 1968-69 – work that changed the way hospitals treat coagulopathies associated with massive blood transfusion. It continued with his seminal work on the safe use of neuromuscular blockade, and his serving on several NIH study sections, including being chairperson of the NIH Surgery, Anesthesia, and Trauma Study Section. Dr. Miller’s many contributions to medicine and patient safety honor a history that begins with the research discoveries of John Severinghaus, Ted Eger and Dr. Miller’s classmate, George Gregory.
When he assumed department leadership in 1983, Dr. Miller was determined that others have similar opportunities to make their mark and that the department and specialty expand its leadership role in all aspects of perioperative medicine. During his 26 years of leadership, the department created a nationally recognized multidisciplinary outpatient pain clinic and an inpatient pain service, both of which helped establish UCSF as a leader in pain treatment and anesthesia as the go-to specialty for pain. He continued to expand anesthesia’s leadership in intensive care at UCSF – a role pioneered by his two predecessors as chair. Dr. Miller’s authorship of the most widely used textbook for anesthesia in the world (Miller’s Anesthesia) has highlighted UCSF faculty and dramatically enhanced our department’s international reputation. And he established a translational research fellowship while recruiting leading investigators to our faculty to ensure we grew a research portfolio that reached across specialties and around the world.
Now the pressures of modern healthcare pose a challenge to the department’s and Dr. Miller’s legacies. But as Dr. Miller said recently, “It’s still of prime importance to think big and dream.” We should honor his service and his vision.
The holder of the Ronald D. Miller Distinguished Professor of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care will further Dr. Miller’s deep commitment to clinical research in anesthesia and to excellence in the training and mentoring of young physicians.