Mark F. Newman, MD, the Merel H. Harmel Professor of Anesthesiology and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, will step down from his position as chair on April 1, 2014, to become president of the Duke Private Diagnostic Clinic, LLC (PDC). He will succeed Carl Ravin, MD, who has served as the PDC’s first president since October of 2008.
Dr. Newman has served as chair of the Department of Anesthesiology since 2001. He began his career at Duke as a Cardiac Anesthesiology and Transesophageal Echocardiography fellow before joining the faculty in 1992 as an assistant professor. In 1994, he was named chief of the Cardiac Division of the Department of Anesthesiology. As chair, Dr. Newman has led more than 140 faculty members, 31 fellows, and 51 trainees in the department who provide anesthetic care and consultation in over 80,000 surgical cases a year. During his leadership, Dr. Newman created five new endowed professorships; expanded a perioperative outcomes database beyond cardiac surgery to assess patients undergoing all types of surgery; and increased operating room throughput and efficiency. Dr. Newman also established a formal mentorship program for faculty and created the Academic Career Enrichment Scholars (ACES) program to provide support for clinicians pursuing careers in academic anesthesiology.
Joseph P. Mathew, MD., MHSc, MBA, the Jerry Reves, MD, Professor of Cardiac Anesthesiology, will serve as interim chair for the department. Dr. Mathew received his medical degree from Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, TX, and completed his residency in anesthesiology and a fellowship in Cardiovascular Anesthesiology at Yale University School of Medicine. In 1998, Dr. Mathew joined the faculty at Duke and has since served as director of the Perioperative Transesophageal Echocardiography (TEE), director of the Neurological Outcome Research Group and the Clinical Research Unit (CRU), chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology, and most recently as executive vice chair of Performance and Operations for the Department of Anesthesiology. Dr. Mathew is an active research-clinician funded by the National Institutes of Health for an R01 evaluating the effect of lidocaine infusion upon neurocognitive function after cardiac surgery and two R21s assessing functional connectivity changes in the brain and the relationship between neocortical beta-amyloid deposition and perioperative cognition.