The faculty of the UAB Department of Anesthesiology is inextricably committed to the advancement of innovative anesthesia, pain treatment and critical care services that are safe and of the highest quality in part through excellence in scientific exploration. Our main strategic research initiatives are critical care medicine, pain treatment and perioperative outcomes. The long term goal of these initiatives is to promote and encourage the conduct of basic, translational and clinical research by all members of the Department with the ultimate goal of developing new technologies and agents to improve patient care in the operating room, following surgery in the intensive care units and as outpatients by alleviating chronic pain.
The research advances produced by Anesthesiology Department researchers are especially relevant to improving patient management in the ICU and during surgical procedures. Anesthesiology-based scientific and clinical expertise has aided expansion of ICU (Surgical, Medical, Neonatal) services. Advances in understanding mechanisms of deep tissue pain and control of perioperative pain are enhancing clinical care in these areas. Members of the Department of Anesthesiology have outstanding records of attracting extramural grant support, publishing in highly prestigious journals, organizing and participating national and international symposia in their fields, serving in leadership positions in prestigious journals and organizations and teaching residents, medical and graduate students.
It is our intent to continue to capitalize on and evolve our strengths in the arena of critical care and pain treatment, specifically focusing on understanding the fundamental mechanisms of inflammatory processes and neurophysiological events faced daily in the operating room, critical care units and outpatient pain treatment facilities. The directors of research for these divisions constantly encourage basic scientists and the clinical faculty to collaborate in the design of translational studies aimed in advancing our understanding of basic cellular and physiological events associated with inflammation and pain which hopefully form the rational basis for new diagnostic and/or therapeutic techniques to improve patient care, and in general, to advance the clinical specialty of anesthesiology.