How Anesthesiology Leaders Are Shaping the Future of Medicine

Modern anesthesiology practice is a delicate blend of science, technology, and human connection to ensure good outcomes for patients undergoing life-changing surgical procedures. Dr. Cheng-ting (C.T.) Lee, a Carle Health anesthesiologist and clinical assistant professor at Carle Illinois College of Medicine, incorporates all three elements in her clinical practice and in her work mentoring the next generation of Physician Innovators. Through personalized, data-informed planning, mastery of the latest technology, and skillful application of healing touch, Lee exemplifies a standard of excellence that inspires future healthcare leaders.

“Anesthesia is something that you do when no one else is looking. You're taking care of the patients when they're under. It's up to us to protect their pressure points, to make sure that we optimize them medically — not just carry them through the procedure, but to make sure we optimize their recovery as well. I think that's the essence of anesthesiology,” Lee said.

Lee joined Carle Health in 2020 and CI MED’s clinical faculty in 2021, bringing impressive credentials and a commitment to excellent patient care. She completed residency training at the prestigious New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center, followed by a pediatric anesthesiology fellowship at Nemours Children’s Hospital/Thomas Jefferson University in Delaware. A board-certified attending physician in both pediatric and adult anesthesiology, Lee champions anesthesiologists’ role as members of the surgical and healthcare team.

Data, planning, and precision medicine

Unlike the early pioneers in anesthesia, modern anesthesiologists increasingly practice precision medicine — tailoring care for each patient before, during, and after surgery. Pre-surgery preparation includes analyzing individual patient data along with the latest research data to create an evidence-based anesthesia plan that meets the patient’s needs. During surgery, anesthesiologists are the pilots in charge of high-tech monitors that continuously measure the amount and rate of anesthesia given to the patient as well as the responses of the patient’s vital organ systems. 

“A lot of times, our jobs rely on preparation and prediction and handling the situation when a crisis happens, which is common. I always say that an anesthesiologist is about how to make a decision using the data points that you have and the experiences that you understand with your medical knowledge. And you have to follow through with the consequences that come with your decision-making,” Lee said.

But an anesthesiologist must also plan with recovery in mind. The same medications that keep patients free from pain during surgery can have lasting effects when not administered carefully. A growing body of research in anesthesiology focuses on how to protect the patient’s brain and cognitive function following anesthesia. Lee says current clinical strategies focus on close monitoring and drug choice to prevent post-op delirium and other cognitive disorders.

“When applicable, we use EEG-guided monitoring to prevent deep anesthesia. We also use a multi-modal pharmacological approach to decrease opiate usage [or] medications that can affect your cognitive functions,” Lee said, noting a move toward total intravenous anesthesia or regional anesthesia, such as nerve blocks, over traditional general anesthesia with gas anesthetics for certain types of procedures. “Perioperatively (before, during, and after surgery), we use physiological monitoring devices and also algorithms to help us decrease or reduce the hemodynamic variability (fluctuations in blood pressure) so we can always ensure cerebral perfusion (oxygen flow to the brain) and organ perfusion that tends to optimize the outcome of patients.” 

 Lee says anesthesia research increasingly focuses on improving the precision planning and execution of anesthesia care by tapping into the huge amounts of data captured during each procedure.

AI and anesthesiology

Given the wealth of data available, it’s not surprising that artificial intelligence is playing a greater role in anesthesiology. Lee sees the need to harness AI to optimize anesthesia care while keeping humans in charge of judgment calls. 

One of AI’s strengths is efficiently organizing and analyzing data. Lee says AI’s analytical capabilities are already producing valuable new insights that can improve perioperative care protocols and practices.

AI-driven data insights can also help anesthesiologists provide more consistent care for patients from a broad range of demographic groups, Lee said. “You can take care of patients from newborn babies, even maternal-fetal medicine, trauma patients, transplant recipients, bread-and-butter cases, to geriatric populations. Having AI as part of our practice model can help us close the disparities among all different groups and patients with different backgrounds,” she said.

Mentoring students 

Since 2022, about 10% of CI MED’s graduates have chosen to specialize in anesthesiology in residency. Lee has mentored most of them, with several selected as residents at respected teaching hospitals such as Mayo Clinic, University of California-San Francisco, and New York University. Regardless of her students’ medical interests or goals, Lee brings the same personal touch that informs her clinical practice. 

Joy Ku met Dr. Lee at her white coat ceremony three years ago, and Lee has remained a mentor throughout medical school. “She’s really invested in her students,” Ku said. “She connected me with a couple of her colleagues who were in the fields that I was interested in (oncology). I’ve always felt incredibly supported by CI MED and especially by mentors like Dr. Lee,” she said. 

Lee has offered clinical expertise to CI MED teams competing in the American Society of Anesthesiologists STA Engineering Challenge, in which participants design or build practical, innovative technological solutions to solve real-world problems in surgical medicine. CI MED teams placed first in the competition in 2023, 2025, and 2026. While Lee isn’t an engineer herself, she believes that physician-engineers can make a positive and lasting impact in this tech-heavy field. 

“For someone who was an engineer, they look at an anesthesiologist’s work as a big system of data. Every little interaction comes with a lot of physiological data points,” Lee said. “I think one of the best qualities that our medical students have is that they are able to combine their expertise and talents before medical school and what they learn at CI MED to create products that can really help advance our specialty and even make long-lasting effects.”

In the classroom and in the clinic, Lee encourages her students to innovate and explore the question, ‘How can we do this better?’ 

“These students provide a different lens that helps me see this specialty with the background of technology, industry, innovation,” Lee said. “They inspire me to be better at what I do clinically and make me want to be a better educator for them because I feel I always have to match their level.”