2019 Election Results and Candidate Diversity

2019 Candidate Pool

Dear AUA Colleagues,

As you likely noticed, there was a striking lack of gender balance in the recent candidate pool for the 2019 elections. Members of the AUA have expressed concern, a concern we in AUA leadership all share. The AUA is committed to diversity in all of its forms and it is clear that we now must be proactive in recruiting diverse candidates to leadership positions. In order to understand and effect this change, we will be forming a Diversity Task Force. This task force will be composed of AUA members and will be charged with identifying barriers to diversity within the AUA leadership—or the AUA itself—and with providing recommendations for future action. Should you have a particular interest in this task force, please contact [email protected]. Women and those typically under-represented in academic medicine are especially encouraged to apply.

We look forward to working with you to ensure that the future of AUA leadership reflects the diversity of our specialty, our communities, and the patients we in anesthesiology serve.

-The AUA Council

2019 Election Results

Please welcome the following members to their new roles with the AUA.

Councilor-at-Large

Charles Michael (Mike) Crowder, M.D., Ph.D.
The Alan J. Treuer Endowed Professor and Chair Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine Adjunct Professor of Genome Sciences
University of Washington School of Medicine
Seattle, Washington

Dr. Crowder has been a member of the AUA for more than two decades and has served on the AUA Scientific Advisory Board as a member for eight years and as chair for five. During the last two decades Dr. Xie has been continuously funded by the NIH, first to study general anesthetic mechanisms and now, hypoxic cellular injury. For the last five years, he has served as chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Washington.

Councilor-at-Large

Zhongcong Xie, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Charlestown, Massachusetts

Dr. Xie has been an active member of the AUA since 2008. Dr. Xie’s research has been continuously supported by NIH T32, K12, K08, several R21s and multiple R01s, as well as other grants to perform the research in the investigations regarding perioperative neurologic dysfunction and the neurotoxic capabilities of anesthetics and surgeries. A member of the ASA international committee and the only ASA coordinator in the Chinese Society of Anesthesiology, Dr. Xie intends to accelerate the communication between the AUA and Chinese anesthesia organizations.

Treasurer

Lena S. Sun, MD
E.M. Papper Professor of Pediatric Anesthesiology
Professor of Anesthesiology & Pediatrics
Executive Vice Chair of Department of Anesthesiology
Chief of Pediatric Anesthesiology
Columbia University
New York, New York

A member of the AUA since 1997 and AUA Councilor-At-Large since 2016, Dr. Sun’s current research focuses on brain health in children who receive anesthesia and sedation in the OR and ICU. Nationally, Dr. Sun has held leadership roles in education and research and was appointed in January 2018 as the Medical Director of SmartTots, a public private partnership between FDA and IARS that is dedicated to promote research in children undergoing anesthesia and sedation. She also served as a board member of the Pediatric Anesthesiology Program Directors Association, is a founding board member of Wake Up Safe, and has been an active member of the Pediatric Anesthesia Leadership Council. At Columbia University Medical Center, Dr. Sun has served in educational and administrative leadership roles, which include program director of the ACGME-accredited pediatric anesthesiology fellowship program, Chief of Pediatric Anesthesiology and Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology.

CFAS Representative

Robert Gaiser, MD, FASA
Professor and Chair
Department of Anesthesiology
College of Medicine
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky

As a Director for the ABA and a board member of the ACGME, Dr. Gaiser possesses a solid understanding of graduate medical education in Anesthesiology. He has served as the Chair of the Anesthesiology RC and, for the AUA, as the Chair of the EAB. Regarding the latter, Dr. Gaiser served for four years in this position and introduced a scientific approach to education through the EAB panels.