Bringing more than 30 years of experience to his profession, Wolf H. Stapelfeldt, MD, is a tenured professor and department chairman with Saint Louis University, where his day-to-day responsibilities include overseeing the Anesthesiology department, as well as researching and improving outcomes while providing anesthesia services with an emphasis on minimizing harmful intraoperative hypotensive exposures. Previously, Dr. Stapelfeldt was chairman of the Department of General Anesthesiology at the Cleveland Clinic. He also served the Clinic as its Vice Chairman of Surgical Operations, and was founder and chief medical officer of Talis Clinical, LLC.

Throughout the course of his illustrious career, Dr. Stapelfeldt has authored more than 85 academic research contributions with his research focused on liver transplantation and on creating predictive models, as well as developing electronic systems to allow physicians to make better-informed clinical decisions in real time at the various points of perioperative patient care. He has developed models that describe the risks of mobility and mortality associated with surgery. Additionally, Dr. Stapelfeldt introduced a new scoring method, the SLUScore™, which quantifies the risk of adverse outcomes associated with less than normal blood pressure while under anesthesia.

After Dr. Stapelfeldt graduated summa cum laude with a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Ulm’s School of Medicine in 1983, he went on to complete a postgraduate residency in internal medicine at Klinikum Rechts der Isar in Munich, as well as a residency in anesthesiology and fellowship in physiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He received a medical license in the states of Minnesota, Florida, Ohio and Missouri. As a testament to his dedication and hard work, Dr. Stapelfeldt has received numerous awards and accolades, including the Merit Review Award from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Young Investigator Award from the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research and Roche Laboratories, and the Edward C. Kendall Award from the Mayo Clinic. Notably, Dr. Stapelfeldt’s Clinical Decision Support application was recognized with a Top Ten Innovation in Medicine award from the Cleveland Clinic.

Looking ahead, Dr. Stapelfeldt strives for the widespread realization of a substantial reduction in the significant postoperative morbidity and mortality that commonly ensues in the days, weeks and months following surgery and anesthesia.

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