André P. Boezaart, M.D., Ph.D., FASRA, emeritus professor with the University of Florida (UF) Department of Anesthesiology, has been chosen to receive the 2026 Gaston Labat Award by the American Society of Regional Anesthesia (ASRA) and Pain Medicine. He was selected due to his incredible contributions to the development, teaching, and practice of regional anesthesia and pain medicine in the tradition of Louis Gaston Labat, M.D., pioneer in regional anesthesia and founder of the ASRA.
Boezaart’s medical career began in South Africa, where he earned his medical and master’s degrees from the University of Pretoria. He completed his anesthesiology residency at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Hospital, and later earned his Ph.D. in neuro-anesthesiology at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
Boezaart gained experience with regional anesthesia under austere military conditions, when he served in the South African Defense Force as an anesthesiologist. One of his medical feats was performing the first recorded continuous peripheral nerve blocks for pain management and for the transport of wounded soldiers in 1975.
Joseph M. Neal, M.D., who nominated Boezaart for this award, highlighted his work in inventing and perfecting continuous perineural and neuraxial catheter techniques: “For those of us practicing in the 1980s and 1990s, there was no practical way to extend peripheral nerve block analgesia until Dr. Boezaart made it easy to do so.”
After joining the UF Department of Anesthesiology as a full professor in 2007, Boezaart established the Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship. From 2007 to 2018, he was both the chief of the Division of Acute and Perioperative Pain Medicine in the department and the chief of the Acute Pain Service for UF Health Shands.
In 2019, Boezaart retired from the department after 12 years of service. To this day, he continues to impact the field of regional anesthesiology with the development of an international, web-based collaboration of chronic and acute pain medicine experts for educational and clinical pursuits, and with extensive research collaborations.
Boezaart will accept this award in April at the 51st Annual Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, where he will also present the Gaston Labat lecture during the Excellence in ASRA Pain Medicine Awards Luncheon.
Congratulations to Dr. Boezaart for the Gaston Labat Award!