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Andrew J. Patterson, MD, PhD, has been appointed chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine, effective Jan. 1, 2019.
Emory School of Medicine appoints new chair of anesthesiology

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Holly Korschun

ATLANTA--Andrew J. Patterson, MD, PhD, has been appointed chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine, effective Jan. 1, 2019.

Patterson currently serves as the Larson Professor and executive vice chair of anesthesiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Patterson spent nearly two decades on the faculty at Stanford University before moving to UNMC in 2015. He has worked in South and Central America and in Africa on global health projects since 1998. For more than a decade, he has led clinical, research, education and infrastructure improvement initiatives in the rural village of Gitwe, Rwanda.  

Patterson’s clinical focus includes critical care medicine as well as intraoperative anesthesia care for thoracic and vascular surgery. His research interests are in adrenergic receptor biology, vascular biology, hemodynamic physiology and pharmacology, as well as the cardiovascular impact of sepsis.

After graduating with a bachelor of science degree from the University of Michigan, Patterson earned his medical degree and completed an internal medicine internship at Emory University School of Medicine. He went on to complete a residency and  chief residency in anesthesiology as well as a critical care medicine fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. After fellowship, Dr. Patterson earned a PhD in neurosciences from Stanford University. His research mentor and dissertation advisor was Nobel laureate Brian Kobilka, MD.

Patterson was co-director of the medical school cardiovascular physiology course at Stanford University School of Medicine for many years, and he has received numerous teaching awards. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Anesthesiology since 2011 and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Review Committee for Anesthesiology since 2013. He has chaired and participated in several national committees for the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and the American Medical Association, including the Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement in Anesthesiology and Critical Care.

“Dr. Patterson’s arrival will continue a tradition of outstanding leadership in the Department of Anesthesiology, and we look forward to his contributions to the team and its achievements,” says Vikas P. Sukhatme, MD, ScD, dean, Emory University School of Medicine. “We also want to offer our most sincere appreciation to Dr. Kathy Glas, who has provided strong leadership, stability and outstanding service to the department as interim chair over the past year.”

A natural fit for Emory’s culture of service, Dr. Patterson has a long-standing interest in empowering under-resourced communities, which he attributes in large part to his education at Emory and his teachers and mentors at Grady Hospital. Patterson’s wife, Jenny Jacob Patterson, is a 1992 graduate of Emory College and completed a master’s degree in social work at Smith College in Massachusetts. They have two children. 


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