Ngai Jubilee Associate Professor of Anesthesiology Announced
Dr. Teresa Mulaikal, the department's residency program director since 2018, has been appointed to the Ngai Jubilee Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at the Columbia University Medical Center. Last week, the department's current interim Chair Dr. Tricia Brentjens and former Chair Dr. Ansgar Brambrink announced the appointment to the department.
Dr. Mulaikal is responsible for 104 residents currently in training in the Department of Anesthesiology. She has transformed our educational program in countless ways. For example, while serving as assistant director of the residency program in 2017, she helped design a mock objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) to prepare senior residents for board certification. The residency program’s mock OSCE was one of the first in the country, a blueprint for other programs that have followed since. Her excellence in teaching echocardiography gave rise to a longitudinal program for resident perioperative ultrasound education and to her serving successfully as an instructor for acute care physicians as well as trainees; in 2019, in recognition of her contributions, Dr. Mulaikal was elected Fellow of the American Society of Echocardiography.
After her appointment to residency program director in 2018, Dr. Mulaikal continued her remarkable progress: she instituted a professional development curriculum, redesigned the faculty-resident mentorship program, and helped develop the clinician-educator track to prepare trainees for academic careers. Dr. Mulaikal established diversity and inclusivity as a core value of the residency program and was instrumental in designing the concept of an ombuds for the residency program, assuring a supportive learning environment for all. In recognition of her educational excellence, she received the department’s Kathryn Cozine Teacher of the Year award, and in 2020, she was inducted into the Virginia Apgar Academy of Medical Educators.
These are but a fraction of her achievements. Her former mentor, Dr. Robert Sladen, Allen Hyman Professor Emeritus of Critical Care Anesthesiology at CUMC, states that he “can think of few if any colleagues who have achieved so much for others in such a relatively compressed time frame.”
Dr. Mulaikal also has made substantial contributions to the field’s literature in cardiothoracic anesthesiology, ethics, and physician well-being. Her service to the field includes her leadership on committees dedicated to trainee education and professionalism for the American Society of Anesthesiologists. She is a member of the Educational Advisory Board of the Association of University Anesthesiologists, the leading academic society in anesthesiology, and notably, she is a board examiner for anesthesiology certification and for critical care subspecialty certification for the American Board of Anesthesiology.
The Ngai Jubilee professorship was established in 2006 in memory of Dr. Shih-Hsun Ngai, Professor Emeritus of Anesthesiology and the department’s second chair. This endowed professorship honors a residency program director of distinguished standing, one who has enhanced the department’s academic reputation at Columbia University and beyond.
"The Ngai Jubilee professorship appropriately recognizes Dr. Mulaikal as a superb educational ambassador for our department and for Columbia University," wrote Drs. Brentjens and Brambrink. "We are absolutely thrilled for her, and we couldn’t be prouder that she has received this well-deserved honor."