David M. Gaba, M.D., Associate Dean
DAVID M. GABA, M.D. is Associate Dean for Immersive and Simulation-based Learning and Director of the Center for Immersive and Simulation based Learning (CISL) at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is Professor of Anesthesia (with tenure) at Stanford and Director of the Patient Simulation Center of Innovation at Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System where he is also a Staff Anesthesiologist. Over the last 25 years Dr. Gaba's laboratory has worked extensively on human performance and patient safety issues. This laboratory is a pioneer in applying organizational safety theory to health care. The laboratory is also the inventor of the modern full-body patient simulator and is responsible for introducing Crew Resource Management training from aviation to healthcare, first in anesthesia and then to many other healthcare domains. He has been the principal investigator on grants from a wide variety of funders. Dr. Gaba is an author on more than 100 original articles in a wide diversity of peer-reviewed journals. He is the author of 18 book chapters, and the well-known book Crisis Management in Anesthesiology. After serving on the editorial boards of several high profile academic and medical journals, Dr. Gaba is now the founding Editor-in-Chief of the indexed peer-reviewed journal Simulation in Healthcare, the official journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH).
Dr. Gaba served on the human subjects committee (IRB) of Stanford University for nine years, six of which chaired one of Stanford’s medical IRB panels. He is the Secretary of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation and a founding member of the Research Committee of the National Patient Safety. He is a founding Board member of both the SSH and Advanced Initiatives in Medical Simulation (AIMS). He is the winner of the 2003 Duke Award for Excellence and Innovation in Anesthesia Education from the Society for Education in Anesthesia, and the 2003 David M. Worthen Award for Academic Excellence from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
In addition to Dr. Gaba’s professional activities his interests include fencing (primarily epee), golf, and following developments in physics and space exploration and science.
