Karen Sullivan Sibert, MD, FASA
Though she has practiced anesthesiology for over 25 years, Karen Sibert didn’t start out like most medical professionals. Born and raised in Amarillo, Texas in the 1960s, she was accepted to Princeton as part of the school’s second entering class of female students. She graduated with an English degree and became a reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
Halfway through her first year of reporting, she realized she loved writing, but not journalism. She quit, and later applied and was accepted to Baylor College of Medicine.
After choosing to specialize in anesthesiology, Dr. Sibert completed her residency training and fellowship in anesthesiology at the Yale University Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. She then joined the faculty at Duke University School of Medicine.
Since 1999, Dr. Sibert has worked in Los Angeles as a clinical anesthesiologist and an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, teaching residents and fellows in training. She hasn’t let that get in the way of her writing career. In addition to this blog, she has published in The New York Times and is a regular contributor to the CSA’s Online First columns and to Kevin MD. Her name also frequently appears as an author of articles in medical journals, and chapters in both medical and general interest books. She practices full time, specializing in anesthesia for thoracic surgery and other high-risk adult cases.
Dr. Sibert is married, and has three quite lovely grown children.
Published In
Below is a sampling of some of her more notable pieces.
- “Don’t Quit This Day Job” — The New York Times, June 11, 2011
- “Why–or why not–go into anesthesia?” — In Training, the agora of the medical student community, June 7, 2015
- “Today’s evidence-based medicine may be tomorrow’s malpractice” — February 13, 2014
- “The Anesthesiologist’s Story: New details emerge in the Joan Rivers case” — The Health Care Blog, January 4, 2015
- “Unsupervised anesthesia care by a nurse anesthetist is a threat to patient safety” — KevinMD.com, November 17, 2011
- “Women Have Changed, But Women’s Hotels Remain Quite Proper” — The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 1973