At the January 2016 department faculty meeting, our Chair Howard B. Gutstein, MD announced the establishment of a professorship named in honor of Richard J. Kuwik, MD, current Chief of Anesthesiology at UPMC Mercy and 28-year physician and faculty member in our department. Mark E. Hudson, MD, MBA was named the inaugural holder of the Richard J. Kuwik Professorship of Anesthesiology.
Dr. Kuwik earned his BA and MD at Canisius College and State University of New York at Buffalo, respectively. He completed a surgical internship, anesthesiology residency, and fellowship at Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Hanover, NH (now Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center). He remained on the faculty there until Dr. Rick Siker, then Chair at Mercy, enticed him and his wife Sandy to come to Pittsburgh.
A letter from the Department of Anesthesiology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center regarding the Professorship said that when Dr. Kuwik was a young physician there, he was an “outstanding academic clinician” who was “technically expert, compassionate to patients and their families, and a tireless and effective teacher in the operating room, classroom, and in the intensive care unit. He always provided help to whomever asked, whether faculty, house staff, nurse, or medical student. He was the one physician you wanted to care for you if you were ill. Clearly these characteristics persisted and grew throughout his career.”
Dr. Hudson and future holders of the Professorship “shall emulate the dedication to the Department of Anesthesiology and UPMC exhibited by Dr. Kuwik during his 28 years of service to the Department, his colleagues, and his patients.”