FAER Investment in Fellow Increases Returns ‘By More Than an Order of Magnitude’

I recall with clarity an afternoon in 2007 when my chair, Dr. Kevin Tremper, approached me about a unique grant opportunity from the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER). Knowing my interest in the neurobiology of consciousness and the prevention of intraoperative awareness, he thought I might be interested in the special “Cerebral Function Monitoring Grant” that FAER was offering to address an important controversy in perioperative brain monitoring. As a neuroanesthesiology fellow who would soon be a tenure-track faculty member in anesthesiology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, I was enthusiastic about the topic and prepared an application. Within six months of starting on the faculty, I was informed that my $500,000 FAER grant would be funded. This grant, along with a major investment by my chair that was catalyzed by the grant, enabled me to be the principal investigator of a large, randomized, controlled trial. This...