Several members of our department will soon be traveling to Chicago to attend and/or present at the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. Our department will be represented in many sessions of several types.

The 2010-2011 Margaret V. Lunsford Award recipients are Brian Cheney, Suzanne Crumley, and Aaron Schmidt. Congratulations to each of these individuals.

Brian Cheney

Suzanne Crumley

Aaron Schmidt

This honor, which includes a monetary gift, is awarded to three senior medical student externs annually, and the selection committee considers strongly those externs who have expressed an interest in pursuing anesthesiology as their medical career specialty.

Dr. Lunsford was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, in 1911, received her medical degree from The University of Iowa College of Medicine in 1941, and completed one year of residency training in anesthesiology here at Iowa from 1942-43. She married and moved east with her husband, practicing anesthesiology until her retirement in 1977. A bequest from the estate of Dr. Lunsford was established according to her wish, which was to provide scholarships for medical students interested in entering the field of anesthesiology, based on academic achievement and financial need.

The Department of Anesthesiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, honored Dr. Todd with the Bernard H. Eliasberg Medal, presented at the 47th Annual Bernard H. Eliasberg Memorial Lecture.  On May 5, 2010, Dr. Todd delivered a lecture entitled, “One Simple Experiment and Fifteen Years of Work: The IHAST Trial.”  Please take a moment to read more about this honor.

The National Institutes of Health has invited Timothy Brennan, M.D., Samir D. Gergis Professor of Anesthesia, Vice Chair for Research, to serve as a member of the Surgery, Anesthesiology and Trauma Study Section, Center for Scientific Review.  Dr. Brennan will serve in this capacity from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2014.  Please take a moment to read more about this appointment.

The list below denotes the most recently published articles representing researchers within The Department of Anesthesia, The University of Iowa.

Bellinger A, Siriwetchadarak R, Rosenquist R, Greenlee JD: Prevention of intrathecal baclofen withdrawal syndrome: Successful use of a temporary intrathecal catheter. Reg Anesth Pain Med 2009; 34:600-602.

Borgeat A, Brennan TJ, Eisenach JC, Hemmings HC Jr, Isono S, Kersten JR, Kochs E, Riou B, Warner DS: 2009 in review: Advancing medicine in Anesthesiology. Anesthesiology 2009; 111:1192-1196.

Brennan TJ, Kumar B: Pain assessment, sedation, and analgesic administration in the intensive care unit. Anesthesiology 2009; 111:1187-88.

Hamity MV, White SR, Hammond DL: Effects of neurokinin-1 receptor agonism and antagonism in the rostral ventromedial medulla of rats with acute or persistent inflammatory nociception. Neuroscience 2009, doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2009.10.064.

Kasuya J Kaas GA, Kitamoto T: A putative amino acid transporter of the solute carrier 6 family is upregulated by lithium and is required for resistance to lithium toxicity in Drosophila. Neuroscience 2009; 163:825-37.

Spofford CM, Ashmawi H, Subieta A, Buevich F, Moses A, Baker M, Brennan TJ: Ketoprofen produces modality specific inhibition of pain behaviors in rats after plantar incision. Anesth Analg 2009; 109:1992-1999.

Udeh C, Brennan T: Perioperative Medicine in the United States. Perioperative Medizin 2009;1:211-217.

Wachtel RE, Dexter F: Numerous studies have considered opportunity costs of operating room time. Surgery 2010;147:172.

On October 17, 2009, the department hosted an alumni reception held in conjunction with the recent 2009 annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Many alumni and friends attended, enjoying conversations regarding memories of their days in the department and since. Photos taken during this celebration can be viewed here.

Seven students from Cedar Rapids middle schools came to campus Tuesday, August 11, 2009 for a UI Health Care tour experience which included a tour of the Medical Education and Research facility, a visit with the UI AirCare team, and a stop at our Anesthesia Patient Simulator Center. Jennifer Smith, M.D. (CA-3) talked the all girl group through a routine patient induction. There where some astoundingly good questions, interest in what might constitute “not routine induction,” where an endotracheal tube would be in a tonsil case, etc. It was a very interested and interesting group.

View pictures from the mini Medical School event here.

If you’ll be in New Orleans for the upcoming ASA meeting, please remember you are invited to attend the Iowa Alumni Reception!
	Place: Hilton New Orleans Riverside Salon C, Section 15, First Floor New Orleans, LA Date: Saturday, October 17, 2009 Time: 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. RSVP: Barb Bewyer barbara-bewyer@uiowa.edu 319-353-7559

The list below denotes the most recently published articles representing researchers within The Department of Anesthesia, The University of Iowa.

Kang S, Brennan TJ: Chemosensitivity and Mechanosensitivity of Nociceptors from Incised Rat Hindpaw Skin. Anesthesiology 2009 Jul;111(1):155-64.

Han T-H, Greenblatt DJ, Martyn JA: Propofol Clearance and Volume of Distribution are Increased in Patients with Major Burns. J Clin Pharmacol 2009; 49:768-772.

Baker MT: Sevoflurane-Lewis Acid Stability. Anesth Analg 2009; 108:1725-6

Pandit JJ, Dexter F: Lack of Sensitivity of Staffing for 8-hour Sessions to Standard Deviation in Daily Actual Hours of Operating Room Time Used for Surgeons with Long Queues. Anesth Analg 2009; 108:1910-5

Maktabi MA, Titler SS, Kadakia S, Conway RK: When Fiberoptic Intubation Fails in Patients with Unstable Craniovertebral Junctions. Anesth Analg 2009; 108:1937-40

Wachtel RE, Dexter F: Influence of the Operating Room Schedule on Tardiness from Scheduled Start Times. Anesth Analg 2009; 108:1889-901

Wachtel RE, Dexter F: Reducing Tardiness from Scheduled Start Times by Making Adjustments to the Operating Room Schedule. Anesth Analg 209; 108:1902-9

Hamalainen MM, Subieta A, Arpey C, Brennan TJ: Differential Effect of Capsaicin Treatment on Pain-related Behaviors after Plantar Incision. J Pain 2009; 10:637-45. Epub

Dexter F, Marcon E, Xie X: Operational Research Applied to Health Services 2007 Special Issue. Health Care Management Sci 2009; 12:117-8

The Anesthesia Patient Simulator Center team was on hand April 28, 2009, for the final session of the 2009 University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine Mini Medical School, a program provided in partnership with Osher Lifelong Learning. The 4-week course this year was entitled, “Cardiovascular Disease: What You Should Know.”

Read More and View Pictures...

Congratulations to Douglas G. Merrill, M.D., Clinical Professor, Director, Ambulatory Surgery Center. Dr. Merrill has been elected President-Elect of the Iowa Society of Anesthesiologists. He will serve in this position for a two-year period, after which he will serve as President for two years. Dr. Merrill recently completed a term as Secretary-Treasurer of this group. The Iowa Society of Anesthesiologists is the recognized state component of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and was incorporated as such in 1965 as a voluntary, nonprofit association of physicians interested in the practice of anesthesiology.

The externship program at the University of Iowa Department of Anesthesia has been successful for decades. This year, we have been fortunate once again to have 12 dedicated M4 students help in the operating rooms at night and on weekends. We recognized these students during a ceremony on Wednesday, April 15th, by distributing certificates certifying their participation in our extern program and thanking them for their service.

In addition, special honors were awarded to the following recipients of the Stuart Cullen Award and the Margaret V. Lunsford Award:
 - Cullen Award – Matthew Kidwell
 - Lunsford Award – Bret Alvis, Mark Erickson, Ezra Hallam, Anne Renze.

To read more about these awards and the recipients…

The department’s third photograph competition has concluded. Department members, as well as alumni and friends of the department, were invited to submit their prize photos for consideration as winners. This recently completed cycle of our competition is the first time we opened up the vote to all department members, blinding the name of the photographers, and we received great participation in the selection process. Each photographer’s work could easily have won the competition, yet still the rivalry represents light-hearted fun for all.

The top “winners” are displayed here and are featured in the Spring 2009 Newsletter. Click here to view the other entries.  Congratulations to Dr. David Papworth and Ms. Jodi Kazerani. 

The Nurse Anesthesia Class of 2009 has finished clinical training and was honored at a graduation ceremony, Saturday, February 21 in the East Room of UIHC. The class received their certificates from Michael Todd, MD, Professor & Chair of the Department of Anesthesia; Rita Frantz, RN, PhD, FAAN, Kelting Dean and Professor of Nursing; and Jill Cawiezell, RN, PhD, FAAN Professor of Nursing and Chair of the Department of Systems & Practice.

Bradley Hindman, MD, Professor and Vice-Chair of Anesthesia gave the commencement talk. Kent Croskey, DO, Director of Anesthesia at Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines, was recognized as this year’s physician educator. Melissa Gambrall, CRNA, MSN was selected by the class as this year’s nurse anesthetist educator.

Eight of the nine graduates will be staying in the state, including three here at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. We wish these graduates well.

Two anesthesia faculty members have been awarded individual Carver Medical Research Initiative Grants for 2009-11, Dr. Max Baker and Dr. Toshi Kitamoto. These awards result from are a collaborative funding opportunity of The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust. This year, only 4 applicants were approved for this funding. The Department of Anesthesia is proud to announce that 2 newly selected recipients are members of our department.

Max T. Baker, Ph.D., Associate Professor, was awarded a $24,000 2-year Carver Medical Research Initiative Grant for his pilot project entitled, "Novel Anticonvulsant Hydroxyl Trifluoroethyl Phenolic Compounds." The aim is to enhance the anticonvulsant properties of a compound synthesized by Dr. Baker and already screened through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) consortium.

Toshi Kitamoto, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, was awarded a $30,000 2-year Carver Medical Research Initiative Grant for his pilot project entitled, “Function and Regulation of the Lithium-inducible SLC6 Transporter.” His experiments will use well-established techniques of the Drosophila fly system, with this current project the only one known to use fly genetics to examine lithium responsive genes.

Congratulations to Dr. Donna Hammond who was awarded $1,687,500 from NIH for her grant "Opioid Mechanisms of Analgesia."

Dr. Hammond's lab will study mechanisms by which peripheral inflammatory injury leads to sustained changes in the function and properties of brainstem neurons that modulate nociception.

All of our 2007 graduates have passed both the written and oral examinations and have become BOARD CERTIFIED ANESTHESIOLOGISTS.

Of additional special note is that each passed on the first attempt. We are so proud of their accomplishments and wish them well. This brings our Board Certification rate to approximately 97.5% since 1995. Compare this to the national average of 81%. We ROCK!

As we look forward to cooler weather and its accompanying beauty, remember your camera when you find yourself enjoying the splendors of Iowa. Submit photos for the third contest in our series regarding celebrating Iowa. All photographs are welcome, and each will be shared with viewers on our department’s web site. Two photos will be chosen for special recognition and appear in the print version of our spring 2009 newsletter issue. We encourage all current department faculty and staff, as well as all of our alumni, to participate. The rules are simple: (1) The photo must be an original taken by you, and (2) the photo must represent Iowa during the fall or winter seasons. E-mail your photos celebrating Iowa (in JPEG format) to Dr. From. Include the following:

• Your Name
• Date the photo was taken
• Location where the photo was taken, for instance “Lake McBride, Solon, Iowa”
• Give your photo a name, for instance “Golden Maple I,” or “Ice Storm II.”

The deadline for submission is January 15, 2009. Click here to see the submissions from our last photo contest.