After 11 years as professor and chairman of the University of Nebraska Medical Center Department of Anesthesiology, John Tinker, M.D., retired effective July 1. He will continue as a consultant to the anesthesiology department. Sheila Ellis, M.D., associate professor, will serve as interim chairwoman. Dr. Ellis also serves as the department’s chief clinical director and as anesthesiology service chief at The Nebraska Medical Center.
A native of Cincinnati, Dr. Tinker received his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering in 1964. He was valedictorian at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1968, where he received his medical degree, summa cum laude.
By 1972, he completed an internship and one year residency in surgery, and residency in anesthesiology at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in Boston. In that time, he also completed training in pediatric and obstetric anesthesiology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Lying-In Hospital, respectively. While in Boston, Dr. Tinker also was an instructor of anesthesiology at Harvard.
He served a two-year stint in the U.S. Army Medical Corps Reserves as a major, and also held the position of chief of anesthesia and operating services at the U.S. Army Hospital, Fort Campbell, Ky.
After serving in the military, Dr. Tinker moved to Rochester, Minn., to teach at the Mayo Medical School in 1974. At Mayo, he rose in the ranks from instructor to associate professor at the medical school and chief of cardiovascular anesthesiology at Mayo Clinic, a position he held between 1978 and 1983.
For the next 14 years, he was professor and director of anesthesia at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, before moving to Omaha in 1997 to become professor and chairman of anesthesiology at UNMC.
He is co-author of two major textbooks and five other books in the anesthesiology field, and has 236 publications to his credit, including several articles in fishing magazines.
Dr. Tinker’s areas of research were in coronary physiology and anesthetics, cardiopulmonary bypass physiology, anesthesia risk and risk management, operating room management, quality assessment and cost/efficacy in medicine, among others.
As part of his research, he developed new anesthetic agents for use in the operating room. He holds patents on five inventions in anesthesiology.
Dr. Tinker will continue as a consultant to the department and the college and will assist in residency interviews. Much of his consulting will be conducted long distance from his new home in Spirit Lake, Iowa, where he will pursue his hobbies – fishing, writing and model sailing ship building.
Dr. Ellis received her undergraduate degree with high distinction from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1988.She earned her medical degree with high distinction from UNMC in 1992, where she completed an internship in internal medicine and residency in anesthesiology. She joined UNMC’s faculty as instructor in 1996 and was named assistant professor in 1998 and associate professor in 2006.
Her clinical specialty interests include transplant and geriatric anesthesia. She has given professional presentations around the country, published numerous journal articles and abstracts, and written chapters on anesthesiology in two books about geriatrics and liver surgery.
UNMC is the only public health science center in the state. Its educational programs are responsible for training more health professionals practicing in Nebraska than any other institution. Through their commitment to education, research, patient care and outreach, UNMC and its hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center, have established themselves as one of the country’s leading centers in cancer, transplantation biology, bioterrorism preparedness, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, genetics, biomedical technology and ophthalmology. UNMC’s research funding from external sources now exceeds $80 million annually and has resulted in the creation of more than 2,400 highly skilled jobs in the state. UNMC’s physician practice group, UNMC Physicians, includes 513 physicians in 50 specialties and subspecialties who practice primarily in The Nebraska Medical Center. For more information, go to UNMC’s Web site at www.unmc.edu.