David M. Gaba

David Gaba is a professor of anesthesia and associate dean for Immersive and Simulation-based Learning at the Stanford School of Medicine, as well as a CHP/PCOR fellow. He is interested in a wide variety of topics related to patient safety, including high-fidelity patient simulation; the effects of fatigue on clinicians' performance; and organizational learning through adverse-event reporting and analysis. He directs the Patient Safety Center of Inquiry at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, which does work in the following areas: the theory of organizational safety applied to health care; teamwork and simulation training of healthcare personnel; the effects of fatigue on healthcare personnel; evaluating the "culture of safety" in healthcare institutions and seeking to improve the safety culture through specific interventions; organizational learning through adverse-event reporting and analysis systems; the connection between patient safety issues in routine clinical care and in research involving human subjects; and the human factors involved in the use of medical equipment. Gaba is also secretary of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation. He received a BS in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University, an MD from Yale University, and completed a residency in anesthesiology at Stanford.