Eugene Wesley Ely MD, MPH

Wes Ely, MD, MPH, the Grant W. Liddle Chair in Medicine, is a sub-specialist in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine who conducts patient-oriented health services research as a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also a practicing intensivist with a focus on Geriatric ICU Care, as the Associate Director for Research for the VA Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research and Education Clinical Center.

Dr. Ely’s research has focused on improving the care and outcomes of critically ill patients with ICU-acquired brain disease (manifested acutely as delirium and chronically as long-term cognitive impairment). He is co-director, along with Dr. Pratik Pandharipande, of the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship (CIBS) Center, which consists of over 90 investigators from the Departments of Medicine, Surgery, Neurology, Anesthesia, and Psychiatry.

The CIBS Center has amassed thousands of patients in cohort studies and randomized controlled trials, who together built the methodology for ICU-acquired brain disease research and newly adopted treatment paradigms including the ABCDEF Bundle. His team developed the primary tool (CAM-ICU, translated into 35 languages) by which delirium is measured in ICU-based trials and clinically at the bedside in ICUs worldwide.

Dr. Ely has been continuously federally funded (NIA and/or VA) for nearly 20 years and is now embarking with the CIBS Center and Rush University Medical Center on the NIA-funded BRAIN-ICU-2 R01 to establish a brain bank and determine the exact nature of post-ICU Dementia. He has over 500 peer-reviewed publications.