Department of AnesthesiologyMarcos F. Vidal Melo, MD, PhD - Professor
Chair, Department of Anesthesiology
Rebecca Terry White Distinguished Chair
Departmental History
Galveston Alumni Society (GAS)
The University of Texas Medical Department in Galveston first opened its doors in 1891 with the completion of the Red Brick Building, now known as "Old Red". At the time, 80% of the physicians in Texas were male and had less than one year of formal training in medicine. In spite of this, the University of Texas Medical Department in Galveston accepted female students, and in 1904, Claudia Potter was the seventh woman to graduate from the Texas Medical School and became the first physician in the state of Texas to devote full time practice to anesthesiology.
In the 1920's and 30's, inhalation anesthesia using ethyl chloride, chloroform, and ether was administered by medical students, interns, nurses, or the patient's PCP, none of which had formal training in anesthesiology. Responsibility for checking the virals during the operation were assigned to the circulating nurse. It wasn't until the late 1930's when physicians began to limit their scope of practices to just anesthesia. By 1938, anesthesia became recognized as essential to the surgical field and was recognized as part of the University of Texas Medical School curriculum.
The anesthesiology department at UTMB was founded in 1942 and is the first autonomous academic anesthesiology department in the United States. Our first chairman of the department of anesthesiology, Dr. Harvey Slocum, served from 1942-1953. We graduated our first resident, Dr. Emilia Hoeflinch, in 1944. From 1942 to 1990, the department graduated 297 residents, and of those, 95 physicians have become fellows of the American College of Anesthesiologists. Today, the UTMB anesthesiology department has expanded to four campuses along the Gulf Coast and continues to thrive, training anesthesiology residents and medical students. We have a deep legacy of alumni and faculty that spread to almost every state in the nation and are excited to create this platform to connect and engage everyone together.
