In a ceremony at Harvard Medical School’s Gordon Hall of Medicine on Dec. 10, 2012, HMS Dean Jeffrey S. Flier acknowledged Rami Burstein as the first incumbent of the John Hedley-Whyte Professorship in Anaesthesia.
“Rami, you are an outstanding member of our faculty, a dedicated educator, and a very deserving inaugural incumbent for this great honor,” said Flier.
Burstein is a respected leader in migraine research whose work has led to better predictions of which migraine therapies will work for specific patients. He has also helped to illuminate how migraines alter the nervous system, explain why some migraine sufferers are sensitive to light and touch, and improve understanding of migraine triggers. He has earned multiple awards, including two Wolff Awards for Excellence in Headache Research from The American Headache Society, the Seymour Diamond Lectureship Award and the Javits Neuroscience Merit Award.
Having joined the Harvard community in 1990 as a postdoctoral researcher in pain physiology, Burstein became an assistant professor in neurobiology and anesthesia in 1992 and a full professor in 2009. In 1997, he created the Center for the Diagnosis of Pain at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is also academic director of the Comprehensive Headache Center at Beth Israel Deaconess.
The professorship is named for John Hedley-Whyte, the HMS David S. Sheridan Professor of Anaesthesia and Respiratory Therapy at VA Boston Healthcare System. A pioneer in modern respiratory physiology and a member of the HMS community for more than 50 years, Hedley-Whyte contributed to the creation of an academic anesthesia department at Beth Israel Deaconess and an anesthesia department separate from the surgical department at HMS.
“The establishment of a professorship to honor the decades of work and rich career of Dr. John Hedley-Whyte is truly fitting,” said Flier.
Other speakers at the ceremony included Kevin Tabb, president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess and HMS professor of medicine, and Brett Simon, the Edward Lowenstein Professor of Anaesthesia and head of the Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care at Beth Israel Deaconess. Burstein’s wife, Joni, their daughters Talia and Yuli, and Hedley-Whyte’s wife, Tessa, professor of pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, were also in attendance.
The professorship was established by the Beth Israel Anaesthesia Foundation, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Department of Anaesthesia, and friends and colleagues of John Hedley-Whyte.
