Gulur named head of anesthesiology
Nationally renowned pain specialist developed widely adopted care models for pain management
Padma Gulur, MD, will lead the Department of Anesthesiology at WashU Medicine beginning Aug. 1.
Padma Gulur, MD, a physician-scientist and nationally recognized leader in pain management, has been named the head of the Department of Anesthesiology and the inaugural Alex S. Evers MD Distinguished Professor in Anesthesiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Her appointment begins Aug. 1.
Gulur comes to WashU Medicine from Duke University, where she is the interim chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and a professor of Anesthesiology and Population Health Sciences. She also is the director of pain management strategy and opioid surveillance for Duke University Health System. Her appointment was announced by David H. Perlmutter, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and the George and Carol Bauer Dean of WashU Medicine.
“Dr. Gulur has made transformative contributions to pain management and, by identifying opportunities to change the trajectory of pain outcomes for patients, has developed programs to ensure access to high-quality pain treatment while minimizing the risk of opioid misuse,” said Perlmutter. “Under Dr. Gulur’s leadership, WashU Medicine’s Department of Anesthesiology — a global leader in clinical care, education, clinical and basic research applied to anesthesia, and critical care and pain medicine — has enormous potential to further advance patient care and the frontiers of medical science.”
As a pain specialist, Gulur has developed methods to identify patients at risk for poor pain outcomes and developed interventions to improve pain management. She established two nationally adopted care models. One optimizes pain management after surgery and during hospital stays, when people are at high risk for opioid use, chronic pain and addiction. The other care model is a community-based program to identify at-risk patients early to prevent worsening pain and the need for more intensive pain treatments.
Gulur’s early research as a physician-scientist resulted in patented technologies to ensure safer dispensing of opioids, thereby reducing the medications’ risks. Her research program now focuses on alternative pain treatments that reduce an over reliance on opioids, such as green light therapy — a non-invasive treatment that uses specific wavelengths of light to manage pain.
“I am honored to lead the Department of Anesthesiology at WashU Medicine,” said Gulur. “The department’s strengths in clinical care, discovery and education, combined with WashU’s deeply collaborative culture, create extraordinary opportunities for advancement. I look forward to working with the exceptional faculty, staff and trainees to further elevate our impact across all missions.”
Throughout her career, Gulur has held leadership positions that have improved patient care. At Massachusetts General Hospital, where she served as director of pain services from 2006 to 2014, she founded a multidisciplinary care management program for children with acute or chronic pain or in need of palliative care. Later, as a professor and vice chair of Anesthesiology at the University of California, Irvine, she led the redesign of a patient-centered approach that coordinates all aspects of surgical care — from the decision to have surgery through recovery. At Duke University School of Medicine, where she held multiple leadership roles before becoming interim chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, she improved the scale, safety and quality of anesthesia, pain and critical care services for hospitalized patients and those in the clinic.
Under Gulur’s leadership as interim chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at Duke University, the department grew significantly in clinical reach and bolstered its academic goals, achieving a top five residency program and ranking No. 3 in research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Gulur is actively involved in the mentorship of residents, fellows and early-career faculty. She founded the acute pain and regional anesthesia fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, co-led the national effort to secure accreditation for the subspecialty and served as the fellowship director for chronic pain at the University of California, Irvine.
Gulur earned her medical degree from the Bangalore Medical College in India. She completed residency training in anesthesiology at Boston University and a fellowship in pain medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, an academic medical center affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Following nine years as director of Pain Services at Massachusetts General Hospital, Gulur joined the faculty of the University of California, Irvine. Then, in 2016, she took a faculty position at Duke University School of Medicine.
She has held national leadership roles as chair of the FDA Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, which ensures that customized medications are safe and effective. She currently serves as chair of the Pain Medicine Maintenance of Certification program for the American Board of Anesthesiology, ensuring subspecialists maintain high-quality care standards through continuous learning, and is a member of the American Medical Association’s CPT Editorial Panel, which oversees standardized codes used by healthcare providers to report services, procedures and supplies to ensure accurate, consistent and fast payment for medical claims.
Gulur will succeed Michael S. Avidan, MBBCh, the Dr. Seymour and Rose T. Brown Professor of Anesthesiology, who has led the department since 2019. He will remain on the faculty and continue his clinical research into improving perioperative neurological and mental health outcomes — including co-leadership of the Center for Perioperative Mental Health, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health at the NIH, and a 13,000-patient clinical trial comparing intravenous anesthesia with inhaled anesthesia. The trial is funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).
Avidan assumed the department head role from Alex Evers, MD, the Henry E. Mallinckrodt Professor of Anesthesiology, who led the department from 1992 to 2019 and is the namesake of Gulur’s professorship.
“Dr. Evers remains one of the most impactful leaders in the history of WashU Medicine,” Perlmutter said. “I also want to express my sincere gratitude and deep admiration for Dr. Avidan. His leadership over the past seven years has been masterful in all aspects, highlighted by the department achieving the No. 1 ranking in NIH funding for the past two years. He also established a legacy of skilled leadership as a member of our executive faculty governance system that has been a cornerstone of our medical school. I am grateful for Dr. Avidan’s dedication to strengthening so many aspects of the WashU Medicine community.”
