Bernard V. Wetchler, M.D.

On October 16, 2002, the ASA House of Delegates selected Bernard V. Wetchler, M.D., as the recipient of its highest recognition, the Distinguished Service Award. The award will be presented to Dr. Wetchler immediately preceding the Emery A. Rovenstine Memorial Lecture on Monday, October 13, 2003, in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Any ASA member or component society may nominate an ASA member for the award. The candidates are considered by the Committee on Distinguished Award, composed of the three most recent ASA presidents and the three most recent recipients of the Distinguished Service Award. The committee may elect one individual for nomination. The nomination is presented at the opening session of the House of Delegates, and at the second session of the House, the nominee must receive a two-thirds vote of the House for selection.

Dr. Wetchler graduated from New York University and the New York Medical College. He completed his residency at New York Medical College, Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospitals, and practiced in Peoria, Illinois, for 40 years. He currently serves as Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois.

He was President of the Illinois Society of Anesthesiologists in 1982-83. He has been honored on multiple occasions by the Illinois society, which has bestowed upon him the William O. McQuiston Award, the Ralph Waters Award and its Distinguished Service Award.

By the time Dr. Wetchler served as ASA President in 1995, he had given more than two decades of service to the Society and four decades of service to the specialty.

As ASA President, he initiated the Society’s involvement in value-based anesthesia, recognizing the need for anesthesiologists to take leadership roles in the operating room environment and emphasizing the particular fit of the anesthesiologist to such roles. He also began the society’s still-continuing role in practice management activities and provided the impetus for rejuvenation of many of our state component societies.

Perhaps his greatest contributions were in the field of ambulatory anesthesiology, in which his visionary leadership foresaw the shift of surgical procedures from the hospital setting to other locations now well known to all anesthesiologists. He was a founder and the first President of the Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia, which awarded its Distinguished Service Award to Dr. Wetchler in 1995. The International Association for Ambulatory Surgery inducted him as its first honorary member in 1997.

Dr. Wetchler represented ASA as a delegate to the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA). As an international leader in our specialty, he was elected as Vice-Chair (1988-92) and Chair (1992-96) of the WFSA Executive Committee and subsequently served as a Vice-President.

Dr. Wetchler also has written an autobiographical memoir in the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology’s popular Careers in Anesthesiology series. His chapter appears in volume seven of that series and is titled “Ninety Percent of Life Is About Showing Up.”

Dr. Wetchler now resides in Chicago with his wife, Jorie.

Barry M. Glazer, M.D., is Staff Anesthesiologist, Department of Anesthesiology, Saint Francis Hospital, Beech Grove, Indiana. He is ASA Immediate Past President (2003).