EP 1,155B - SAVING GRACE: What Patients Teach Their Doctors about Life, Death, and the Balance in Between

Guest Bio: Dr. David Alfery, MD

DR. DAVID ALFERY was raised in the North but moved to Louisiana to attend Tulane University where he obtained a BA in English.  After graduating from LSU Medical School in New Orleans, he spent a year as a surgical intern at the University of Kentucky in Lexington before doing his residency in anesthesia at the University of California in San Diego. He stayed on there for an additional year of fellowship training in cardiothoracic anesthesia.

In 1980 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he spent a thirty-six-year career in private practice.  He has served as a Chief of Anesthesia, President of the Tennessee State Society of Anesthesiologists, and was a founding member of Anesthesia Medical Group, one of the largest anesthesia practices in the United States.  For twenty years he served as an Oral Examiner for the American Board of Anesthesiology, ending his tenure as a Senior Examiner.  He holds an academic appointment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as Adjunct Associate Professor of Anesthesiology.  While in practice, he participated in numerous medical missions with Operation Smile. 

Dr. Alfery has authored ten chapters in medical textbooks and 41 peer reviewed articles in anesthesia medical journals. He has invented several anesthesia devices that are sold worldwide and for which he has been awarded 17 US and International patents. 

He has been married to his medical school sweetheart, Joyce, for over forty-five years, and together they have produced three daughters and five (and counting) grandchildren.

Dr. Alfery has served as a Chief of Anesthesia, President of the Tennessee State Society of Anesthesiologists, and was a founding member of Anesthesia Medical Group, one of the largest anesthesia practices in the United States.  For twenty years he served as an Oral Examiner for the American Board of Anesthesiology, ending his tenure as a Senior Examiner.  He holds an academic appointment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as Adjunct Associate Professor of Anesthesiology.  Dr. Alfery has authored 10 chapters in medical textbooks and 41 peer reviewed articles in anesthesia medical journals.  He invented several anesthesia devices for which he has been awarded 17 US and International patents.

“Many individuals, of course, have professions in which they are privileged to interact with others and to profoundly affect their lives. I was fortunate to be one of them. For all good doctors, the kind you want looking after you, there is a transition where you go from thinking that the patient is there for you, to realizing that you are there for the patient. When you understand that it is an honor to be trusted with another person’s life, medicine becomes your profession rather than your job, and someone you take care of becomes a unique individual with needs rather than a patient with a number. Only then can you fully embrace the shared humanity that binds physicians to their patients.”—from the Introduction