Chairs of Neurology and Anesthesiology named
SYRACUSE, N.Y.-- Two longtime faculty members have been appointed to lead two key clinical departments at Upstate Medical University.
Luis Mejico, MD, professor of neurology and ophthalmology, has been named chair of the Department of Neurology, and Sebastian Thomas, MD, professor of anesthesiology, has been named chair of the Department of Anesthesiology. The appointments were announced by David Duggan, MD, professor and dean of the College of Medicine.
Mejico is a highly respected clinician, clinical researcher, teacher and administrator. He is widely sought after for clinical problems, and has held or shared numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health and industry, primarily supporting clinical trials and outcome studies. He has published widely in peer-reviewed articles on causes of neuromuscular eye disease and its treatment.
A member of the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, Mejico serves as a reviewer for several journals, including the Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology, Archives of Ophthalmology and Neurology.
Mejico is a member of several professional societies, including the American Neurological Association, North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society, Neuro-Ophthalmology Research Investigation Disease Consortium and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. He is also a member of Alpha Omega Alpha.
He is a recipient of the Gold Standard Award, three Department of Neurology Excellence in Resident Teaching awards and a Best Teaching Award, and has been selected to Best Doctors in America consecutively since 2007.
Thomas has been a member of the Upstate faculty for more than three decades, most recently serving as interim chair of the Anesthesiology Department since 2013.
He is a nationally recognized expert in anesthesiology and specifically in the treatment of pain. Thomas is the editor of Image Guided Pain Management (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1997) and author of more than 40 peer-reviewed articles, chapters and CD-Rom chapters. A frequent presenter at international and national meetings regarding pain treatment, he has won numerous awards for his presentations.
Thomas received his MBBS degree from the Gandhi Nagar Medical College in India, followed by training in surgery at Unity Hospital and a residency in anesthesiology at Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center in New York, where he also served as chief resident in anesthesiology and completed a fellowship in pain management before joining the faculty at Upstate.
He rose rapidly through the ranks at Upstate, being named professor in 1998, and has served in multiple important roles at Upstate, the region and nationally. He has been chair of the Committee on Pain Management for the New York State Society of Anesthesiologists since 2011. He has served as director of the Pain Treatment Service at Upstate University Hospital from 1984 to 2010, and again from 2013 to the present. He has been the vice chair for education in the Department of Anesthesiology, and he has served on the Institutional Review Board for Protection of Human Subjects for many years, as a member of the Executive Committee of the Medical College Assembly, and the Graduate Medical Education Committee. Currently he serves as a member of the UMAS Governing Board. Within the Department of Anesthesiology, he has served as a member of the executive committee and vice president of the Upstate Anesthesiology Group for more than a decade.
Thomas has been honored twice as the Outstanding Attending of the Year for the Department of Anesthesiology and was elected to the Association of University Anesthesiologists in 1995, among other accolades.