On September 1, 2021, Senthil Sadhasivam, MD, MPH, MBA, FASA, will join our department leadership as Executive Vice Chair for Clinical Quality, Patient Safety, and Clinical Research. He will also serve as the Director of the Perioperative Research and the Perioperative Genomics Program.
Dr. Sadhasivam completed his medical education and his first anesthesiology residency respectively at Thanjavur Medical College and All India Institute of Medical Sciences in India, and his second anesthesiology residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School in Boston. He completed a fellowship in pediatric anesthesiology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and earned a Master of Public Health in Clinical Effectiveness from Harvard School of Public Health, a Certificate in Business Administration from the American Society for Anesthesiologists, and an MBA in Business of Medicine from Indiana University (IU) Kelley Business School in Indianapolis.
Senthil will join us after serving as Gopal Krishna Endowed Professor of Anesthesia at Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Anesthesiology, IU School of Medicine. He also previously worked at University of Cincinnati College of Medicine/Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC), holding the positions of Director of Perioperative Pain Medicine Services and Director of Outside OR Procedural Anesthesia Services. He brings 27 years of clinical anesthesia experience in pain management and fetal, pediatric, adult, and regional anesthesia; 24 years of experience in clinical research in anesthesia and pain management; and four years of research experience in human wellbeing and spirituality research.
Dr. Sadhasivam is one of the leading NIH-funded anesthesiologists in the country and has an impressive history of research grants as PI funded by other agencies such as FAER, the Thrasher Foundation, and the CCHMC Center for Pediatric Genomics. His current NICHD-funded R01 research focuses on the effects of opioid use disorder in pregnancy on long-term maternal and child outcomes. His second R01 focuses on perioperative opioid pharmacogenetics, and his R21 focuses on developing a bedside pupillometry tool to predict postoperative opioid-induced respiratory depression.
Senthil has also served as site PI or multicenter trial PI on numerous clinical investigations funded by industry partners. Dr. Sadhasivam is an inventor on over 10 US and European patent applications. He recently founded Opalgenix, Inc., a company to empower perioperative physicians to predict and prevent costly and devastating opioid-related adverse effects by translating his opioid pharmacogenetic research into clinical practice. His inventions have also been licensed to industry for development and commercialization. Dr. Sadhasivam has mentored many anesthesiology faculty, fellows, and residents who have gone on to obtain FAER, SPA, APSF, and NIH K23 and R01 grant funding. He has authored or co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles and scholarly book chapters.
As Executive Vice Chair for Clinical Quality, Patient Safety, and Clinical Research, Dr. Sadhasivam will direct several critical efforts in our department. He will develop and lead essential components of our quality improvement initiatives, liaising with our department’s clinical site chiefs and other key leaders. Dr. Sadhasivam will also direct the growth of our Clinical Research Program. As Director of our Perioperative Genomics Program and Director of Perioperative Research, Senthil will develop, facilitate, and coordinate clinical perioperative research projects between investigators within our department and external collaborators.
We welcome Dr. Sadhasivam to the department and look forward to his direction and experienced leadership.