Roles
Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology
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Biography
Dr. Mahla has had a very long career in graduate medical education stretching from 1983 to the present. During that time, he served as a faculty member at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and the University of Florida College of Medicine. He served as program director at the University of Florida for 15 years and then as the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and DIO overseeing 72 ACGME accredited programs. After that, he returned to his Alma Mater, Sidney Kimmel Medical College (a.k.a. Jefferson Medical College) as their first chief of neuroanesthesia. Shortly after that he became the executive vice-chair and then chair of the Department of Anesthesiology. After retiring from the Chair position in 2022, he spent a brief period working per diem at the University of Miami and then moved to the NY area so he and his wife could help raise their grandchildren. He assumed a full-time position at SUNY Downstate in June, 2023 and became the anesthesiology residency program director in July. After 2 years of service, Dr. Mahla has returned to the University of Miami, working primarily in complex neurosurgical cases.
He has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications, and delivered lectures at multiple national and international meetings, mainly involving neurosurgical anesthesia and neurologic monitoring. He received the Teacher of the Year Award from the Society for Neuroscience in Anesthesiology and Critical Care — a professional society that supports scientists and physicians whose research focuses on the nervous system and brain — in 2012.
Outside medicine, Dr. Mahla is a classically-trained pianist and tenor singer. He received a scholarship to study piano for three months at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He continues to be active in music as the Church organist in his church. During medical school and later when he returned as faculty and Chair, he played a key role in the Thomas Jefferson University Choir. While a student, he served as conductor for two years and after returning to Jefferson, he was named associate conductor. -
Education & Training
Education
Post Graduate Training
Licensures and Certifications
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Teaching Interests
I am a strong believer that residents (and medical students) should be given progressively greater responsibility and independence as their performance indicates. Sticking to a strict, time based curriculum and training program, while successful for many trainees, is disastrous for some others. Trainees who progress faster than others become bored with what they are doing and performance declines. Trainees who progress slower than others develop severe stress and often fail. This latter group benefits from slowing down their training and allowing a longer time period to master clinical skills and medical acumen.Transitions from medical school to internship, internship to residency, and residency / fellowship to practice remain poorly formed and based more or less on a long standing "apprenticeship" approach. Dreyfus, I believe, with his five stages of mastery, provides us with an innovative training method that really makes sense for adult education and skill acquisition. -
Research Interests
I have two areas of research - Electrophysiologic Monitoring of the Brain and Spinal Cord and Innovation in Graduate Medical Education. My most important area of research is the development and implementation of a transition to practice program for PGY-4 anesthesiology trainees. The method of accomplishing this task varies from institution to institution. The most successful program was at the University of Florida. -
Publications
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