It is our pleasure to announce that Dr. Tanya Wildes has accepted a secondary appointment in the Department of Anesthesiology in our Division of Clinical and Translational Research (DoCTR). Dr. Wildes is internationally recognized as a thought leader and research expert in oncology and in geriatric medicine. As such, we anticipate that she will add substantial strength to our research endeavors, especially with the growing number of older adults who are undergoing invasive procedures at our institution. For many of them, the surgery is indicated as part of treatment for cancer.
The roles Dr. Tanya Wildes will be playing in the Anesthesiology Department through DoCTR will include:
1) Research mentorship to early stage anesthesiology scholars, with a focus on women and those from minority backgrounds. Dr. Wildes will specifically be helping to guide the Anesthesiology Women’s Scholars’ Movement (AWESOME) initiative. We envisage that Dr. Wildes will contribute meaningfully as a mentor to our scholarly training programs, and that she will help us to develop women, including those from under-represented minority backgrounds, as research leaders.
2) Participation as a leader in our nascent Initiative for Multidisciplinary Perioperative Research and Science (IMPRESS). We are currently in the process of bringing together a team of investigators with interests in perioperative research and with diverse backgrounds (anesthesiology, pain medicine, public health, geriatrics, various surgical specialties, psychiatry, genetics, informatics). Dr. Wildes will play a leading role in this initiative as an expert geriatric researcher in the oncology field.
We welcome Dr. Wildes to our research family. She is now an Associate Professor both of Medicine and of Anesthesiology. We are excited about cementing yet another strategic research collaboration between the Departments of Medicine and Anesthesiology. We look forward to many future successes that will broadly benefit Washington University School of Medicine and the communities we are serving.