BY
WENDY SODERBURG
UCLA Today Staff
Barbara Van de Wiele recently found herself in the intense glare
of the media as the lead anesthesiologist in the separation surgery
of the conjoined twins from Guatemala, an extremely complicated
case that involved three different anesthesia procedures.
Two of the procedures — the neuroangiography
and the placement of tissue expanders — took place weeks
before the actual 22-hour separation surgery, for which Van de
Wiele designed two teams that spelled each other in 12-hour shifts.
But complexities aside, Van de Wiele knows that
what was at stake for the twins is the same for all her surgical
patients: human lives that depend on her skills.
“This case got more media attention than
other cases that we do, but that’s all that separates it
from the other cases,” Van de Wiele said firmly. “Every
time you take someone’s child into the operating room for
a resection of a brain tumor, you bring to bear the same expertise
that we brought to this case, the same concern, the same focus.
Really, it’s not that different.”
Born in New Haven, Conn., to a father who was
an academic physician and a mother with a master’s degree
in chemistry, Van de Wiele seemed destined for a career in medicine
or science. Now vice chair for clinical affairs in the Department
of Anesthesiology, she has fulfilled that destiny.
Her initial preference, however, was the liberal
arts. Van de Wiele remembers graduating from Smith College with
a degree in English in 1977, not really knowing what she wanted
to do with her life. One afternoon while walking in the woods
with her father, he suggested she become either an architect,
a lawyer or a doctor.
“It wasn’t like I was told, ‘These
are your options.’ It was just a discussion about the things
he thought I might be good at,” Van de Wiele explained.
“Medicine was really attractive to me because it gave me
an opportunity to have some sort of positive impact in the world.”
While attending Columbia Medical School, Van de
Wiele’s first thought was to be a plastic reconstructive
surgeon. While interning at UCLA, however, she met anesthesiologist
John Bauer, who inspired her to pursue anesthesiology. But before
she could start her residency at Columbia, her husband, an attorney,
told her that he had gotten a job offer in Los Angeles. Back to
Los Angeles they went, and Van de Wiele completed a three-year
anes-thesia residency and a one-year pediatric anesthesiology
fellowship at UCLA. She joined the faculty here in 1989.
As a clinical professor in the Anesthesiology
Department, Van de Wiele spends four days a week supervising residents
in the operating room. With 26,000 anesthesia cases a year in
more than 50 operating rooms at UCLA and at Santa Monica-UCLA
Medical Center, she ends up working about 11 hours a day, not
including the times when she is on call. But she wouldn’t
have it any other way.
“I’ve been given extraordinary opportunities,”
Van de Wiele said. “I find all aspects of my work —
both the educational and patient-care aspects — rewarding.”
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