David Eric Lees, M.D., a member of the Board of Directors of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation was recently honored by the Food and Drug Administration with the Commissioner’s Special Citation and the Harvey W. Wiley Medal.

The awards were presented at a ceremony in Rockville, Maryland by the new Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, David A. Kessler, M.D. The medal commemorates Dr. Harvey W. Wiley who is the “Father of the Pure Food and Drug Law.’ The original Federal Food and Drug Act was initially known as the “Wiley Act” and was signed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

The citation of Dr. Lees’ achievement reads: For outstanding contribution of time, resources and expertise in assisting the Food and Drug Administration’s Anesthesia Gas Machine Pre-Use Checklist Evaluation Project.

The FDA Anesthesia Gas Machine Pre-Use Checklist was first issued in 1986 as an educational adjunct in cooperation with the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, as well as, other interested parties. This generic Checklist provided an organized and rational mechanism for a practitioner to check any machine, old or new, that they might encounter in their clinical practice. Within the last two years the utilization and effectiveness of the Checklist have undergone extensive study and work is presently underway on a revised Checklist that acknowledges the advances in monitoring technology since the introduction of the original Checklist.

Dr. Lees is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anesthesia at the Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In addition to his APSF duties as Associate Editor of the APSF Newsletter, he serves as Chairman of the Committee on Equipment and Facilities of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and is a member of the Anesthesia and Respiratory Devices Panel of the Food and Drug Administration.