The Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine is integral to the healthcare, education and research missions at OHSU.  

We provide clinical services at OHSU hospitals and collaborate with the VA Portland Health Care System and Hillsboro Medical Center. We specialize in providing excellent perioperative care and anesthesia services to our patients using state-of-the-art technology and pharmacologic tools with an emphasis on patient safety.

Pre-operative assessment is facilitated by electronic data collecting systems and is integral to minimizing patient risk.

In the operating rooms our anesthesiologists work in care teams with our fellows, residents, and nurse anesthetists as well as independently. Pre- and post-operative care is under the medical supervision of our department. We play a prominent role in the caring for patients in the cardiovascular, neurosciences, and virtual intensive care units. In the ICU our team includes anesthesiology intensivists, critical care fellows, physician assistants/nurse practitioners, and residents. The role of our team in the ICUs is comprehensive and critical to achieving the highest quality outcomes for our patients.

The Comprehensive Pain Center (CPC) team includes physicians, psychologists, physical therapists, nurse practitioners,  and a naturopath who deliver truly comprehensive care and offer more training opportunities for fellows and residents. Patients benefit from both traditional (e.g., blocks, pumps, stimulators) and non-traditional (e.g., biofeedback) pain management techniques. The department is also nationally recognized in pediatric pain management.

 Our regional anesthesiology team was among the leading centers in the country to develop an ambulatory regional anesthesia program.  Our Adult Pain Service provides ongoing postoperative support for patients receiving ongoing regional or neuraxial analgesia in addition to providing their consultative expertise in the management of complex pain patients. Our peripheral nerve catheter/home pump program allows orthopedic surgery patients to benefit from continuous pain relief for days while recovering at home following surgery.

Our department's research program is robust.  We have an active clinical research division. It covers a wide range of areas with a special focus on patient safety and pain management. Our basic science division has labs at both OHSU and the VA. Attending physicians, fellows, residents, and medical students work collaboratively with Ph.D. scientists in our labs to advance human health.  This division is focused on neuroscience and renal physiology.

Our department is dedicated to providing the highest quality and most innovative education training in the country for residents, fellows, and medical students, with trainee opportunities at OHSU, the VA Medical Center, and community hospitals. Our very active education research group focuses on lifelong learning strategies, particularly in the area of regional anesthesia. We are the proud developers of the ASA’s Anesthesia Tool Box. We continue to innovate using tools to evaluate our learners’ progress on specific entrustable activities as well as broader readiness to be independent consultants in anesthesiology.

The Anesthesiology Residency Review Committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has consistently awarded our program full accreditation. We were the first program in the U.S. to be approved by the ACGME and ABA to allow for integrated training of research and anesthesiology, and critical care medicine and anesthesiology. We were also the first program to offer advanced curriculum options for our residents, on a voluntary basis through our ExCEL program. We offer fellowships in Pediatric Anesthesiology, Adult Critical Care, Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology, Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine. The scope of our training opportunities is extensive and includes exposure to a wide variety of patient diseases and surgical procedures as well as CPC and ICU training with dedicated time in our full-body human simulation laboratory. We are a large department –with over 400 faculty and staff –yet we are a close community highly committed to teamwork to deliver the highest level of patient care, training and research.

Thank you for visiting our website to learn more about us. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Stephen T. Robinson, M.D.
Professor & Chairman