A generous donor who wishes to remain anonymous has given more than $200,000 to the Department of Anesthesia to create the Anesthesia Research Institute Fund. The fund is intended to provide much-needed money to support research that otherwise would likely go unfunded.

“So often, the important questions we face in our daily work are not the kind of hypothesis-forming and hypothesis-testing questions that are typically supported by federal and non-governmental funding agencies,” says Donna L. Hammond, PhD, vice chair of research for the Department of Anesthesia and head of the Department’s Research Review Committee.

The new Anesthesia Research Institute Fund aims to fill some of that gap and support the scholarship activities of the faculty and trainees, Hammond says.

“We will be accepting applications from Department faculty, fellows, and residents for questions that address important issues in anesthesiology,” she says. “Those research questions may be broadly defined; they may be basic science, or clinical research, or implementation science – how to implement best practices, for example.”

A quarterly call for applications will be announced.  The research review committee will consider funding requests of $10,000 to $25,000 for  pilot research projects. Such projects, Hammond says, can be stepping stones for additional research activities in the investigator’s area of interest.

The donor noted the difficulty many anesthesiologists have in securing funding for research.

“The National Institutes of Health doesn’t have an institute for anesthesiology,” the donor says. “But the information this kind of research provides helps improve patient care, and that’s what this new fund is intended to promote.”

Questions regarding the new Anesthesia Research Institute Fund, including application protocols, may be directed to donna-hammond@uiowa.edu.