IARS 2026: Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER)
Release Date: 08/27/2026
Perioperative Profile: Dan Sessler
TopMedTalk
In this TopMedTalk perioperative profile, host Andy Cumpstey interviews Professor Dan Sessler, Vice President for Clinical and Outcomes Research and Professor of Anesthesiology and Biostatistics at UTHealth Houston (McGovern Medical School), about his career as a perioperative trialist with over 1,000 publications. Sessler describes his scientific family background, early inspiration from clinical trials through Henry Kaplan’s Hodgkin’s work, and a shift from planned pediatric oncology to anesthesiology. He recounts building a research career starting with perioperative thermoregulation at...
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IARS 2026: Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER)
TopMedTalk
At The International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS) and Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists (SOCCA) meeting in Montreal, TopMedTalk hosts Mike Grocott and former editor-in-chief Desiree Chappell speak with FAER board members Dr. Rebecca A. Aslakson, Chair and Professor with Tenure, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Vermont Health Network and Dr. Michael Gropper, Professor and Chair of the UCSF Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, about the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER). We describe how FAER’s early-career support—especially the...
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TopMedTalk AI: AI-Augmented Ultrasound for Regional Anaesthesia
TopMedTalk
In Scotland at St Andrews, TopMedTalk AI hosts Andy Cumpstey and James Bowness discuss AI in regional anaesthesia with Bernard Victor Delvaux, staff anesthesiologist at the Centre Hospitalier Privé Claude Galien in Quincy-sous-Sénart, France. Bowness describes a regional anaesthesia course using AI-augmented ultrasound imaging, augmented reality simulated needling, and cadaveric ultrasound with real needle insertion. Delvaux discusses his research in AI-assisted nerve recognition, explains supervised model development through large-scale ultrasound image annotation for GE Healthcare’s...
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Breaking Trials: ITACS Trial on Preoperative IV Iron for Anaemia Before Cardiac Surgery
TopMedTalk
Recorded at the excellent ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2025 in San Antonio. Hear Andy Cumpstey and Mike Grocott interview Paul Myles, a Professor of Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Here we focus upon his group’s approach to large pragmatic, multicenter international trials and the process of selecting and developing study questions within a clinical trials network. Myles presents the ITACS trial (intravenous iron treatment for anaemia before cardiac surgery), designed because anaemia is common (~30%) in elective cardiac surgery and is associated...
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EBPOM London 2026: European Postoperative Care Pathways
TopMedTalk
This presentation was recorded at the Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) 2026 Annual Global Meeting. It features Nicolai Bang-Foss, Consultant, head of GI and orthopaedic anaesthesia, Hvidovre University Hospital, Denmark His main research field is the perioperative care of the elderly emergency patient. Specific areas of research have been regional analgesia, transfusion thresholds, outreach programs and perioperative logistics as well as perioperative haemodynamics. He describes wide European variation in postoperative pathways driven largely by ICU bed capacity, with Scandinavian...
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Breaking Trials: The VITAL trial on TIVA, volatiles and outcome
TopMedTalk
Recorded at the Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress in London this episode of TopMedTalk sees Andy Cumpstey speaking with a panel of experts about the VITAL trial: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial about volatile vs total intravenous anaesthesia (TIVA) for major non-cardiac surgery in adult patients. The primary outcome was days alive and out of hospital at 30 days. Despite finding no significant differences in the primary outcome, the trial reveals that patients receiving TIVA anesthesia experience better recovery, with less postoperative nausea and other side...
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ANZCA ASM: Emerging Leaders
TopMedTalk
At the ANZCA Annual Scientific Meeting in Auckland, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey discuss ANZCA’s Emerging Leaders Conference (ELC), a retreat-style program held immediately before the ASM for clinicians within five years of achieving FANZCA, with allowances for career disruptions. Their guests, Dr Saana Taylor FANZCA and Dr Vik Singh FANZCA, co-conveners of this year's ELC, describe shaping this year’s New Zealand-hosted ELC with an Aotearoa focus, naming it Te Herenga Matua (“the pursuit of consciousness”) and emphasizing collaboration, communication, wellbeing, compassion, and...
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SOAP 2026: Ron George on community, partnerships, and expanding peripartum anaesthesia
TopMedTalk
From the 58th annual meeting of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) in Montreal, Mike Grocott and new co-host Joe Larvin speak with SOAP president Ron George about SOAP’s growth to over 1,000 attendees and its international, collaborative community. George outlines his career from Dalhousie to UCSF and back to Canada as director of obstetric anesthesia at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, highlighting its high-risk referral practice and large, internationally diverse fellowship program. He reflects on his presidency’s focus on mission alignment and partnerships,...
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TopMedTalk Classic: Should direct laryngoscopy be consigned to the history books?
TopMedTalk
This classic TopMedTalk piece was originally cast in April 2020. The debate 'Direct laryngoscopes should be consigned to history', was hosted by The Royal College Of Anaesthetists and carried out by our two guests on this piece, where the debate is outlined in advance. We get into the advantages and challenges behind the two techniques; video laryngoscopy and direct laryngoscopy. The conversation explores the fact that these skills are a key part of the job of practitioners, are we "de-skilling" the profession in an overly enthusiastic race toward new technology or are some resisting it simply...
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Euroanaesthesia 2026: Hot Topics in General Anaesthesiology with Laszlo Vutskits and Hugh Hemmings
TopMedTalk
Live from Euroanaesthesia 2026 in Rotterdam, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey speak with Laszlo Vutskits and Hugh Hemmings ahead of the “Hot Topics in General Anaesthesiology” lecture. Vutskits discusses reports of devastating neurologic outcomes after minor procedures in previously healthy patients, linked in a Spanish series to a shared mitochondrial DNA haplotype traced to Venezuela, including a rare ND4 complex I mutation; cybrid and fibroblast experiments showed clinically relevant sevoflurane rapidly suppresses oxidative phosphorylation but reversibly on washout, while propofol (tested...
info_outlineAt The International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS) and Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists (SOCCA) meeting in Montreal, TopMedTalk hosts Mike Grocott and former editor-in-chief Desiree Chappell speak with FAER board members Dr. Rebecca A. Aslakson, Chair and Professor with Tenure, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Vermont Health Network and Dr. Michael Gropper, Professor and Chair of the UCSF Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, about the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER).
We describe how FAER’s early-career support—especially the Mentored Research Training Grant—helped launch our guest’s own research trajectories and facilitates transition to larger funding, with about 60% of MRTG recipients later obtaining NIH funding.
They outline FAER’s origins (founded in 1986 in partnership with the ASA), funding mechanisms spanning medical students to early faculty, partnerships with multiple specialty organizations, and career development resources including networking, mock study sections, and a National Academy of Medicine collaboration, emphasizing mentorship and community as central to long-term research success.
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