For Release: September 28, 2009
Contact: David Corriveau, Media Relations Officer, Dartmouth Medical School, at David.A.Corriveau@Dartmouth.edu or 603-653-0771
Dodds Named Anesthesiology Chair
Thomas M. Dodds, M.D.
Lebanon, N.H.—Thomas M. Dodds, M.D., has been named chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), after serving as acting chair for the past 18 months. His appointment follows the previous departmental leadership of David Glass, M.D., who chaired anesthesiology from 1983 to 2008.
Dodds, a 1982 graduate of Dartmouth Medical School, has several research interests. He was an early proponent of the perioperative use of beta-blockers, a class of drugs that reduces the risk of cardiac complications during and after surgery. He was also one of the first anesthesiologists involved in the Northern New England Cardiovascular Disease Study Group, an internationally recognized voluntary association that tracks the management of cardiovascular disease in eight medical centers.
During his tenure as acting chair, he oversaw continued growth of the department where he has worked since 1988. Today, it offers training and treatment in more than 20 subspecialties. "Now," Dodds says, "we have niches - like the use of transesophageal echocardiography during surgery, or the use of ultrasound to guide the placement of nerve blocks - that we could barely imagine 20 years ago."
Dodds believes that Dartmouth's size works to its advantage in pioneering and implementing medical advances. "We're a little more nimble," he says. "One of the benefits of this institution is the collaborative nature of our practice, the ability to move across disciplines," compared to places that "are set up like huge, independent silos where it's hard to get together on anything."
And Dodds expects Dartmouth's new president, Jim Yong Kim, M.D., Ph.D. to further emphasize collaborations among the Medical School and Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering, Tuck School of Business, and Arts and Sciences program. "It's a vision he is encouraging—breaking down the barriers," says Dodds. "We've got folks in our department collaborating with Thayer, Tuck, and the College on inventions and projects that frankly would be difficult to do at other institutions."
We've got folks in our department collaborating with Thayer, Tuck, and the College on inventions and projects that frankly would be difficult to do at other institutions.
—Thomas M. Dodds, M.D.
Dodds brings a fiscal as well as a medical perspective to his position. He majored in economics as an undergraduate at Williams College and in 2002 earned a certificate in business administration from the American Society of Anesthesiology. As vice chair and director of clinical affairs of Dartmouth's Department of Anesthesiology from 1997 to 2008, he collaborated with Glass in managing the finances of the department and also promoted technological, pharmaceutical, and logistical innovations to ease surgery patients through their full hospital stays.
The institution's leaders—William R. Green, Ph.D., dean of the Medical School; Nancy A. Formella, M.S.N., president of Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital (MHMH); and Thomas A. Colacchio, M.D., president of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic—extolled Dodds's wide-ranging impact in announcing his appointment: "He has had principal roles in designing outpatient surgery facilities and services, overseeing perioperative services, enhancing service quality and supporting strategies for use of simulation in education and practice," the leadership team noted.
Dodds also served on the MHMH Board of Trustees from 1997 to 2005 and on the MHMH/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic Board of Governors from 1997 to 2003.
He was elected to membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society while studying at Dartmouth Medical School, and went on to serve an internship and residency in internal medicine at DHMC. He then trained for three more years as a resident in anesthesiology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, where he also served as chief resident. He is board-certified in both internal medicine and anesthesiology.
After completing his training in 1988, he returned to Dartmouth and ever since has played a role in the institution's rise to national prominence. "Even back in the '80s," Dodds says, "the clinical care was superb and something I wanted to be a part of. I hadn't anticipated the growth of the academic side, the dramatic growth of the institution - the new campus, the number of physicians, the number of programs we offer, the entire scholarly productivity of the entire institution. The academic medical center had come of age."
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