Dr. Lakshmikumar Venkat Raghavan is the new Director of the Anesthesia Fellowship Program

The Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine congratulates Dr. Lakshmikumar Venkat Raghavan (MD, FRCA, FRCPC), who takes on the role of Director of the Anesthesia Fellowship Program on July 1, 2023.

Dr. Venkat Raghavan is an associate professor at the Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine in the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. He completed his medical school and anesthesia training in India before undergoing further anesthesia training in the United Kingdom. A graduate of the neuroanesthesia fellowship at Toronto Western Hospital, Dr. Venkat Raghavan has worked as a staff anesthesiologist at Toronto Western Hospital since 2005.

Clinical and Research Focus

Dr. Venkat Raghavan is the Director of the Neuroanesthesia Program at Toronto Western Hospital. He is also the medical director of the neurosurgical intraoperative monitoring department at University Health Network. An active researcher, he is a clinician-investigator at the Krembil Brain Institute. His clinical and research focus is neuroanesthesia, and to date, he has more than 120 peer-reviewed publications focusing on neuroscience and neuroanesthesia.

Achievements of the Neuroanesthesia Fellowship Program

As the director of the neuroanesthesia fellowship program at Toronto Western Hospital, he has developed extensive experience in managing and mentoring fellows. Since his appointment in 2011, his strong passion for teaching is demonstrated in the success of many of his former fellows, who have become leading clinicians and leaders in neuroanesthesia worldwide. His fellows have also consistently been academically productive and extensively published.

Critically, one of his most important achievements in the role was the program's accreditation by the International Council of Perioperative Neuroscience Training. It was the first anesthesia fellowship program at the University of Toronto to receive this milestone. Dr. Venkat Raghavan also led the implementation of numerous initiatives to enhance the quality of fellows' education and training, including formalized teaching sessions and workshops, combined teaching rounds with other hospitals and departments, and fellowship exchange programs with St. Michael’s Hospital. A passionate advocate for his fellows, Dr. Venkat Raghavan has also been actively involved in the International Medical Graduate Revision Tutorials for Neuroanesthesia Sessions since 2009. This program has helped many fellows gain independent practice licences.

His other administrative responsibilities include being a member of the University of Toronto's Continuing Medical Education Committee and the department's appointment committee.

Future Plans

As the incoming director of the department's Anesthesia Fellowship Program, he envisions the following for the program:

1. Applying the best practices in equity, diversity, and inclusion across recruitment, training, and administration

2. Facilitating rotations across the sites to enhance the clinical experience through diversity and develop strong research collaborations

3. Improving the quality of the evaluation process by formalizing the objectives of the fellowship

4. Developing a career pathway that will facilitate a smooth transition into practice

We are excited to welcome Dr. Venkat Raghavan to the team.