Brian Ilfeld, M.D., a graduate of the department’s regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine fellowship (‘01), was honored with the prestigious 2022 Gaston Labat Award from the American Society of Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine (ASRA).
Ilfeld is currently a professor of anesthesiology at the University of California San Diego, where he is also director of Regional Anesthesia Clinical Research and site director of the Outcomes Research Consortium. He received his medical degree at the University of California San Francisco where he also completed an anesthesiology residency. After his fellowship at UF, where he additionally earned an MS in clinical investigation, Ilfeld worked as faculty for four years.
Ilfeld’s nominators noted his outstanding contributions to perineural catheters, a huge advance to regional anesthesia and analgesia.
“No physician scientist has contributed as much to this technique – which has become a daily staple of many anesthesiologists’ practice,” his nominator wrote.
F. Kayser Enneking, M.D., professor of anesthesiology and orthopedics and the 2021 recipient of the Gaston Labat award, introduced Ilfeld as he gave his lecture during the ceremony at ASRA’s annual meeting this spring in Las Vegas.
Enneking, who is also interim associate chair of research, served as a mentor to Ilfeld while he was a fellow, and the two worked closely together to refine the continuous peripheral nerve block technique.
In her lecture for the 2021 Gaston Labat Award, Enneking credited Ilfeld for his “dogged determination to perform double- and triple-blinded studies to demonstrate the efficacy and work out many of the optimizations for these techniques.”
“Dr. Ilfeld loves to write papers and I love the logistics of taking care of patients, so we made a good team,” she wrote.
The Gaston Labat award honors Gaston P. Labat, M.D. (1843-1908), a pioneer in regional anesthesia and the first president of the ASRA, which was founded in 1923. The award, presented annually, honors those who have demonstrated outstanding contributions to the development, teaching, and practice of regional anesthesia in Labat’s tradition.
Ilfeld, who has also continued to collaborate with UF faculty over the years, will deliver the keynote address at the department’s annual Celebration of Research next year. Congratulations all!
Learn more about our Regional Anesthesiology & Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship