The George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences is pleased to announce Jeffrey Berger, MD, MBA as interim chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine.
In this role, Berger will lead the department comprised of over 75 board-certified anesthesiologists, critical care intensivists, and pain medicine physicians in addition to over 50 advanced practice providers, residents and fellows. He will promote clinical excellence, foster research, and ensure excellence in the department’s education programs. He will also encourage collaboration, mentor professional development of anesthesiology faculty, spearhead recruitment and retention efforts, and lead oversight of clinical operations.
From 2007-2015, Berger was the program director for anesthesiology at GW. While in this leadership position, he developed an international elective in Quito, Ecuador, a four-year categorical training program, and a novel resident-as-teacher experience. He also launched an annual residency retreat in order to conduct a comprehensive review of the residency program. In 2014, Berger was appointed associate dean for graduate medical education (GME). Under Berger’s leadership, GME expanded by 14 positions and institutional accreditation was “commended” by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. His efforts were recognized with the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award in 2016.
“The expertise of our anesthesiology team is unequaled in the Washington, D.C. region,” said Berger, who is also a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine. “I am excited to bring further growth and development to the department.”
In addition to his leadership in GME, Berger has also taken an active role in developing greater efficiencies at GW. He initiated the replacement of pagers and the adoption of the TigerConnect smartphone application for all GW faculty, residents, and fellows. He also developed the GW Quality Improvement Platform, a web-based software revolutionizing categorization of institutional efforts in quality improvement. In just one year, the GW QI Platform has collected data on over 140 quality improvement projects.
Before joining the faculty at GW, Berger was associate residency program director and assistant professor of anesthesiology at New York University Langone Medical Center, where he was awarded the prestigious Rovenstine/Capan award in 2006 and the Distinguished Educator honor in 2007.
He is a member of the Association of University Anesthesiologists, the Society of Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology, and the American Society of Anesthesiologists, where he participates in committees centered on workforce research and education. Berger serves on the Board of Directors of the Society for Education in Anesthesiology, and he is president emeritus of the District of Columbia Society of Anesthesiologists.
Berger has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and abstracts. He is co-editor for both Anesthesia Board Review, Part I: Basic and Anesthesia Board Review, Part II: Advanced and is associate editor for the Manual of Clinical Anesthesia, 2nd Edition from McGraw Hill and Lippincott publishers respectively. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Graduate Medical Education, and co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Education in Perioperative Medicine, both PubMed-indexed journals.
Berger completed his internship and anesthesiology residency at New York Presbyterian Hospitals – Weill Cornell Medical Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and his Master of Business Administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. He received his Bachelors of Science from the University of Michigan.
Berger will assume the role of interim chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine on August 1, 2018.
