Featured Anesthesiology Members

Department of Anesthesiology Featured Member: May 2024

Alex has been a CRNA in the Department of Anesthesiology since 2018. Currently, he is the Clinical Chief CRNA for BJH, and can be found working in any POD across South Campus, Parkview Tower, or the CAM.  Born and raised in St. Louis, Alex initially graduated from Mizzou with a bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Medicine, but quickly realized that the nursing profession offered far more opportunities. Subsequently, not long after leaving Mizzou, Alex moved to Chicago where he obtained an accelerated BSN degree from Loyola University.

Fun fact; while in Chicago, Alex spent one football season working as a beer vendor during Bears games at Soldier Field, walking the aisles and perfecting his signature beer call.

After the birth of his first child, as most St. Louisans do, Alex returned home to St. Louis, where he worked as an RN in the CVICU at SLU Hospital for the next three years. After graduating from the Goldfarb Nurse Anesthesia program, Alex joined the WUDA team, where he’s remained ever since.

Alex lives in Creve Coeur with his wife and three children ages 6, 8, and 11. A lifelong St. Louis sports fan, Alex tries to take his kids to as many Cardinals and Blues games as he can, cementing their fandom from an early age. Two of his biggest accomplishments include once winning a pizza-eating contest and hitting a homer at the old Bush Stadium, although not on the same day.

Department of Anesthesiology Featured Member: March 2020

David is originally from London in the UK and joined WashU in 2018 to further his academic ambitions in obstetric anesthesiology. His current clinical research aims to profile the pharmacokinetics of oxytocin at cesarean delivery and examine ketamine as a possible preventive intervention for postpartum depression. David met his wife, Scarlett in London in 2012 but they have now spent the majority of their relationship outside of the UK (Canada and Australia before their current stay in the USA). He and his family are enjoying settling down and making St. Louis their home with their baby daughter, Millie. Despite the blue that dominates his photograph (still celebrating the Stanley Cup, perhaps), David and his family are big Liverpool FC fans (soccer) and are very hopeful that the Reds will end 30 years of hurt by winning the English premier league in 2020!

Department of Anesthesiology Featured Member: January 2023

Arianna Montes de Oca grew up in Caracas-Venezuela and went to MD school in Colombia. She joined the WashU anesthesiology family in 2019 to work in telemedicine research and is now halfway through her intern year. She has enjoyed the exposure to different specialties and teams this year and has definitely learned a lot in the process, but she can’t wait to start her CA-1 year!

She lives with her husband (Nimrod) and beautiful dog (Lara), but her family lives abroad, so she doesn’t miss a chance to travel and visit them. She loves working out, especially boxing and running in some of the beautiful parks this city has to offer…but it is not all exercise, she also likes drinking wine and beer, as well as eating out. She says life is all about balance!

Department of Anesthesiology – FAS Employee of the Quarter: January 2022

Karen is a Business and Technology Applications Analyst II in the IS group and just celebrated her 14th anniversary with the department. She manages the remaining departmental servers as well as KnowledgeLake and SharePoint support. Karen also handles Epic training role assignments and general access and training questions. Technical support of clinical issues has been recently added to her responsibilities and she looks forward to gaining a more in-depth knowledge of the clinical side of our department. She has been married for 30 years and has one child who is a REACH teacher in the Kirkwood school district. In her spare time, she enjoys working on her Lego city, New Brickmoore, which recently opened a new hospital, WUDA Memorial.