We are pleased to announce that after serving as interim chief for nearly six months, Vijay Krishnamoorthy, MD, MPH, PhD, has been appointed chief of our Critical Care Medicine (CCM) Division, effective immediately.
Dr. Krishnamoorthy, an associate professor of anesthesiology and population health sciences, brings nearly 12 years of experience to his new role as division chief in which he will be responsible for leading, supporting and growing the division's clinical, research and education programs. The CCM Division provides patient care in six intensive care units across the Duke University Health System and the Durham VA Medical Center; and all units are directed or co-directed by faculty from within this division. The CCM Division has robust programs in the study of critical illness, spanning population health, clinical trials, clinical/translational, and basic science research. It also has an ACGME-accredited fellowship in critical care medicine, providing an innovative training experience to eight fellows per year.
“I am so grateful for the opportunities that Duke Anesthesiology has provided me, and I am excited to lead our incredibly talented faculty through our next phase of growth," says Dr. Krishnamoorthy. "I look forward to helping the division realize its vision of transforming the future of medicine for critically ill patients and become one of the top divisions of critical care medicine in the world."
Dr. Krishnamoorthy earned his medical degree in 2004 at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, where he also completed an anesthesiology residency and fellowships in critical care medicine and pain medicine. He went on to the University of Washington to complete additional board certification in neurocritical care and an NIH T32 fellowship, with a focus on understanding extracranial organ dysfunction following traumatic brain injury. There, he also earned an MPH and PhD in epidemiology and served on the faculty as an anesthesiologist and intensivist at Harborview Medical Center.
In 2017, Dr. Krishnamoorthy joined the Duke Anesthesiology faculty and has since been an integral part of the growth of our Critical Care Medicine Division. He served as the associate division chief, prior to assuming the role of interim division chief. Notably, he helped develop and now co-directs the Critical Care and Perioperative Population Health Research (CAPER) Unit, which launched in 2019 and aims to improve the lives of patients undergoing surgery and critical care through the conduct of large-scale observational research using rigorous population health methods. Under his joint leadership, the CAPER Unit recently reached a milestone of more than $1.2 million in industry support, as well as numerous high-impact publications in perioperative and critical care medicine. Dr. Krishnamoorthy’s research has spanned injury epidemiology and perioperative/critical care population health and has been funded by industry, foundation and federal sources. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed manuscripts.
We would also like to express our appreciation to the 10-member search committee for their collective time, efforts and contributions to the search process and selection of Dr. Krishnamoorthy as division chief - an important task that helps ensure the future success of the department. The search committee was chaired by Dr. Atilio Barbeito and comprised of departmental members Drs. Jennifer Dominguez, Dhanesh Gupta, Ashraf Habib, Nazish Hashmi, Michael “Luke” James, Gavin Martin, Andrea Nackley, Mihai Podgoreanu, and Galen Royce-Nagel.
Please join us in thanking Dr. Krishnamoorthy for his service as interim chief and extending him congratulations on his new leadership role in our department.