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August 2002
Volume 66 |
Number 8
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| Daniel I. Sessler,
M.D., to Receive 2002 Excellence in Research Award |
Henry Rosenberg, M.D.
In the mid-1980s when Daniel I. Sessler, M.D., started studying
perioperative thermoregulation, there were perhaps only 40 publications
on the subject. With his initial exploratory investigations, it
became obvious that much of what was believed at the time was
simply wrong. This led him to a 17-year-long series of studies
that have now almost fully characterized the effects of anesthetics
on temperature regulation, perioperative heat balance and the
adverse effects of mild hypothermia.
Among Dr. Sessler's important work are a series of major outcome
studies demonstrating that mild hypothermia (i.e., 1.5-2šC) causes
numerous serious complications. These include a three-fold increase
in the risk of surgical wound infection, increased blood loss
and transfusion requirement, prolonged duration of postoperative
recovery and prolonged hospitalization.
Dr. Sessler was raised in Berkeley, California, in a remarkably
scientific family. His father is a physicist, as was his mother.
Andrew Sessler is former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a
recent President of the American Physical Society. His sister,
Ruth, is a geologist, and his brother, Jonathan, is a prominent
professor of chemistry who has published 250 full research papers
and been granted 65 patents.
Dr. Sessler describes a childhood home that had a fully equipped
chemistry laboratory, but no television. Much of the brothers'
free time was devoted to increasingly complex pyrotechnic experiments
that ended only after several major explosions. "All chemists
start by trying to blow themselves up," their father quipped.
"And the good ones succeed!"
Dr. Sessler attended the University of California-Berkeley where
he majored in chemistry. He never graduated. "Turns out that
an undergraduate degree isn't actually required for medical school,"
he notes. Graduation from the Columbia University College of Physicians
and Surgeons in New York was followed by residencies in pediatrics
and anesthesiology at the University of California-Los Angeles.
Dr. Sessler spent the subsequent 15 years in the department of
anesthesiology at the University of California-San Francisco.
In 2000, he moved to the University of Louisville where he is
Assistant Vice-President for Health Affairs, Associate Dean for
Research, Distinguished University Research Chair, and the Lolita
and Samuel Weakley Professor of Anesthesiology.
Dr. Sessler has been funded continuously by the National Institutes
of Health since 1987 and has received numerous grants from other
peer-reviewed and corporate sources, totaling more than $4.5 million.
Over the years, Dr. Sessler has trained 40 research fellows. Most
have subsequently become academic physicians, and four now chair
anesthesiology departments. Many continue to collaborate with
Dr. Sessler and formed the nucleus of the Outcomes Research® group,
now an Institute at the University of Louisville .
This worldwide group of 70 investigators, whom Dr. Sessler is
quick to credit, is the most prolific anesthesia research group
in the world.
Dr. Sessler has published more than 250 full research papers,
including about 100 in Anesthesiology and half a dozen in the
New England Journal of Medicine or Lancet. He has served on the
editorial boards of four journals and as reviewer for more than
25 others. He has been an invited speaker at more than 150 institutions
and has received a dozen previous awards, including the $3,000
GÄRI Anesthesia Research Prize and the $9,000 Schülke prize.
Dr. Sessler's impact on the practice of anesthesiology would
be difficult to overestimate. He is among the few anesthesiologists
in recent decades to so extensively modify routine care. When
he began thermoregulatory research, temperature monitoring was
rare, and few patients were warmed effectively. Furthermore, there
was little understanding of which systems were effective; consequently,
considerable effort and cost were expended on systems that Dr.
Sessler has since shown to be virtually ineffective.
Dr. Sessler's work is well-known in the anesthesia and surgical
communities, especially his major outcomes studies that demonstrate
severe consequences of mild hypothermia. Consequently, temperature
monitoring has become routine, and most surgical patients are
kept normothermic. In fact, temperature monitoring and thermal
management are now so routine it is easy to forget that current
practice is recent and almost entirely due to Dr. Sessler's efforts.
The anesthesiology community can look with pride and gratitude
to an investigator who has so improved patient care.
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Henry
Rosenberg, M.D., is Professor of Anesthesiology, Thomas Jefferson
University, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. |
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