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July 2001
Volume 65 |
Number 7
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FAER
Honorary Research Lecture:
Debra
A. Schwinn, M.D., to Give Inaugural FAER Lecture on 21st Century
Research |
Carl
C. Hug, Jr., M.D., President
Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research
The Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER) will
sponsor the first FAER Honorary Research Lecture at the 2001 ASA
Annual Meeting in New Orleans. FAER has created this annual lectureship
as a means of recognizing outstanding scholarship by anesthesiologists
and encouraging their careers in research and teaching, which
are crucial if anesthesiology is to maintain its reputation as
a speciality that strives for excellence and continuous improvement
in patient care.
Dr. Schwinn’s lecture “Thinking Out of the Box —
Anesthesiology Research in the 21st Century” will take place
on Monday, October 15, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. in room 352 of the
Morial Convention Center.
In choosing Dr. Schwinn to deliver the first FAER Honorary Research
Lecture, the Foundation has set a high standard for its ensuing
honorees. Dr. Schwinn currently is Professor and Director of the
Molecular Pharmacology Laboratory in the Department of Anesthesiology
at Duke University Medical Center. In 2000, Dr. Schwinn was awarded
a Visiting Investigator Program award at the Human Genome Research
Institute of the National Institutes of Health to study the role
of adrenergic polymorphisms in hypertension. Her research has
made significant contributions to the basic understanding and
clinical management of cardiovascular regulation and genitourinary
pathophysiology, and she continues to work toward an understanding
of how genetic differences between people relate to disease outcomes,
particularly in the settings of cardiovascular surgery and anesthesia
and intensive care. Most importantly, she has mentored 16 fellows
who now hold positions in academic medicine and pharmaceutical
companies.
Despite her innumerable accomplishments in medicine, anesthesiology
was not her first love. Originally, Dr. Schwinn planned to be
a concert violinist. She decided to focus on science early in
her career, but music is a passion that has never left her. She
has taught violin, was a member of a bluegrass band and, while
at Stanford University Medical School, played in the Stanford
Symphony Orchestra and various chamber music ensembles. She continues
to participate in musical groups, most recently with a string
quartet in Rochester, New York, while attending the annual meeting
of the Association of University Anesthesiologists (AUA).
To Dr. Schwinn, music and science are not disparate elements
in her life: “In both science and music, there is a pressure
to do well technically; but talent involves going beyond technique
to the creation of music that communicates, or in science, to
an integrated mechanistic understanding of human disease,”
Dr. Schwinn said.
Despite her years of research experience and countless contributions
to academia, Dr. Schwinn still has found time to be the devoted
wife of Robert Gerstmyer for 20 years and an encouraging mother
of Anna (13 years) and Heidi (6 years), who are studying ballet
and violin, respectively.
In every aspect of her life, Debra A. Schwinn, M.D., personifies
what the FAER Honorary Research Lecture was created to represent.
She has combined her extraordinary energy and enthusiasm with
solid training in research fundamentals, a supportive academic
department and initial funding awards (including a FAER/AUA fellowship
and a FAER Research Starter Grant) to achieve an outstanding array
of successes in her career as an anesthesiologist, scientist,
teacher, mentor, musician, wife and mother.
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Carl C. Hug,
Jr., M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology,
Emory University School of Medicine, and Attending Physician
in Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Emory
University Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia. |
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