Felipe Urdaneta, MD, FASA

My name is Felipe Urdaneta, MD, and I am a professor of anesthesiology in the UF Department of Anesthesiology, working as an academic anesthesiologist at both UF Health and the Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center.

I joined the department as an assistant professor in 1999. I received my medical degree from Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora in Bogota, Colombia. I then completed an internship at Fundacion Santa Fe de Bogota and a fellowship at the Hepatobiliary Disease Institute, also in Bogota. I then came to the United States, completing an anesthesiology residency and a cardiothoracic anesthesia fellowship here at the University of Florida. I’ve also received a master’s degree in education here at the University of Florida.

Although I work with both patients and residents, I spend the majority of my time in the cardiothoracic arena with adult patients and some pediatric cardiac cases, with an emphasis in perioperative echocardiography.

In 2005, I was hired to open the perioperative echocardiography service at North Florida Regional Medical Center here in Gainesville, and I left academics for private practice. Working there helped me realize that my passion is to teach, and that I want to spend the rest of my professional career in education and teaching about difficult airway management. I returned to UF in 2006. In 2010, I was honored to be awarded the Haven M. Perkins Teaching Award from the Department of Anesthesiology.