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October 1997
Volume 61 |
Number 10
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| Ellison C. Pierce,
Jr., M.D., to Receive ASA's Highest Honor |
Bernard V. Wetchler, M.D., Chair
1996 Committee on Distinguished Service Award
The ASA 1996 Distinguished Service Award will be presented to
Ellison Cline Pierce, Jr., M.D., during the ASA Annual Meeting
in San Diego, California, at the Emery A. Rovenstine Memorial
Lecture on Monday, October 20, 1997.
The ASA Distinguished Service Award is the highest award bestowed
by the Society on an anesthesiologist for meritorious service
and achievement during a career in anesthesiology.
A native of North Carolina, Dr. Pierce received his undergraduate
degree from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and his
M.D. degree in 1953 from Duke University Medical School, Durham,
North Carolina. He completed his anesthesiology residency in 1958
at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
and a research fellowship in 1960 in pharmacology at the University
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Dr. Pierce is currently Associate Clinical Professor of Anesthesia
at Harvard Medical School, where he has held various academic
posts since 1962. He served as Chair of the Department of Anesthesia
at New England Deaconess Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, from
1982 to 1995 at which time he was named Chair Emeritus.
His involvement with ASA spans almost 40 years. He has served
as member and chair of numerous standing committees, delegate,
district director, First Vice-President (1981-82), President-Elect
(1982-83), President (1983-84) and Emery A. Rovenstine Memorial
Lecturer (1995). Dr. Pierce has held memberships, offices and
committee assignments in medical professional societies around
the world, including the Massachusetts Society of Anesthesiologists,
Massachusetts Medical Society, American Medical Association, New
England Society of Anesthesiologists (President, 1973-74), Association
of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, Society of Cardiovascular
Anesthesiologists, Council of Medical Specialty Societies and
the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists. He was
named a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (1987) and the
Royal Society of Anaesthetists (1988), United Kingdom, and received
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner's Special Citation
(1988).
Perhaps the achievement for which Dr. Pierce is most well-known
is establishing the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF),
serving as its President from 1985 to present. Dr. Pierce's decade-long
commitment to focusing energies and resources on patient safety
led to ASA's adoption of intraoperative monitoring standards.
The decline in preventable patient morbidity and mortality is
no doubt directly attributable to those efforts as are the decreases
in professional liability premiums over the same time period.
APSF also worked with the Food and Drug Administration to create
a workable preanesthesia machine checklist and a series of patient
safety videotapes for anesthesiologists.
Ellison Cline Pierce, Jr., M.D.'s years of service to the specialty
and his untiring devotion to the welfare of all patients are deserving
of ASA's highest recognition for longtime distinguished service.
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