I am honored to give you a brief report on the status of the Department two years after being appointed the Anesthesiology Alumni Professor. The Department continues to grow, in numbers and in strength. There are close to 1500 alumni (Jenkins Society Members), including residents, faculty and Visiting Assistant Professors.
Charles W. “Chuck” Whitten, M.D., was named Interim Chair in February 2007. A graduate from Southern Methodist University, Dr. Whitten received his medical degree from UT Southwestern in 1984, trained in Anesthesiology at UT Southwestern and Affiliated Hospitals, and joined the Department as an Assistant Professor within the Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Anesthesiology in July 1988. He has held numerous administrative positions, including: Director - Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Anesthesiology; Director of Anesthesiology - Parkland Health and Hospital System operating rooms; Director of Resident Recruitment; Residency Program Director; and Vice Chairman of Educational Affairs. Dr. Whitten is a tenured Professor on the Clinical Scholar Track and is the holder of the M.T. “Pepper” Jenkins Professorship in Anesthesiology.
The Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management is one of the largest Anesthesiology training programs in the nation. On a daily basis, the Department provides anesthesia coverage at 78 locations and will deliver in excess of 44,000 anesthetics at Parkland Health & Hospital System (Parkland Memorial Hospital and Ambulatory Surgery Center), UT Southwestern University Hospitals (Zale Lipshy, St. Paul, and Outpatient Surgery Building), Children’s Medical Center, the Dallas Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, and Texas Scottish Rite Hospital. More than 19,000 deliveries are projected at Parkland and University Hospital. The Department continues to expand its critical care medicine services at Parkland, staffing the Surgical ICU. The Eugene McDermott Center for Pain Management and UT Southwestern Clinical Procedure Center will see over 4000 patients and perform 800 procedures. The Department has recently established Transplantation Anesthesiology Program, which will encompass liver transplantation, in addition to the successful heart-lung transplantation program. As alumni, you can be proud of the Department’s entire faculty as they have pulled together this past year during increasing demand for anesthesiology services while continuing the research and teaching mission of the Department.
Our residency match for the academic year beginning July 1, 2007 was again one of the best in Departmental history. The Department had over 475 applications for our residency training program and interviewed 150 of these individuals. We matched 15 PGY1s out of the first 65 residents on our match rank list. This performance within the match is consistent with the top programs in the country. The Department successfully recruited 8 of the top 15 on the Department’s match rank list. As of July 1st, the Department has 15 interns, 62 residents, and 9 fellows. The Department offers four ACGME-approved fellowships in Pain Management, Critical Care Medicine, Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology, and Pediatric Anesthesiology.
There are 100 faculty, 22 full time and 12 PRN CRNAs, 50 classified staff, and 2 postdoctoral research fellows. The future for our Department is very bright. Please check the Department’s website for more information at http://www.utswanesthesia.com/. The website continues to be refined with expanded residency education opportunities which include PBLDs, Q & As, introductory lecture series for CA1s (Vapor Camp Lecture Series), journal club, grand rounds, and mock oral board examinations.
The 2007 ASA Annual Meeting will be held in San Francisco beginning October 13, 2007. Please save the date of Sunday, October 14th 6:00 pm for cocktails and lite hors d’oeuvres at our Jenkins Alumni Society Reception and Reunion which will be held in the Golden Gate Room at the top of Nikko San Francisco. A separate invitation is to follow.
Many of you made sure we had email addresses for correspondence such as this. You can join this group by sending your email address to Julie Minges in Alumni Affairs at
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I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in October!
Alumni Update 2007 
