Dr. Bruce D. Spiess ‘76
On March 15, Dr. Bruce D. Spiess ‘76 brought his fierce knowledge and experience on public health to global health students at Denison.
Dr. Spiess’s research focuses on blood: its critical oxygen carrying capacity, oxygen therapeutic pharmaceutical development (previously known as “blood substitutes”), risks of blood transfusion, and coagulation/coagulopathies and development of monitoring technologies.
His extensive work in blood transfusion risks has led him to be an outspoken proponent of patient blood management. His present work at the University of Florida has a major focus on trying to get the medical center to become a showplace for anemia correction. In addition, Dr. Spiess is proud of his involvement with the United States military and his efforts to help government agencies understand the issues of “When Blood is not an Option.”
Recently with COVID-19, Dr. Spiess has been involved with an international consortium trying to utilize a novel anti-COVID-19 therapeutic strategy- inhaled adenosine. This work has proven highly effective in some patients in Italy and in the United States, but it is facing governmental regulatory hurdles. The use of this therapy could represent a low cost, easily applied therapeutic for the world, and potentially not just for COVID but for many respiratory viruses.
Thank you for such an illuminating discussion and sharing your work with the Denison community!
More about Dr. Bruce Spiess
Dr. Spiess is the Associate Chair for anesthesiology at the University of Florida, School of Medicine in Gainesville, Florida. In 2017 Denison bestowed an Alumni Citation to Dr. Spiess for his research work in Medicine. At Denison, Spiess majored in biology, then attended Rush Medical College in Chicago followed by The Mayo Clinic for Anesthesiology training, where he specialized in cardiothoracic anesthesiology and was chief resident. He returned to Rush for his first faculty position from 1983-1990. From there he travelled to Seattle to become the Chief of Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology at the University of Washington. Next, he took the position of Vice Chairman of Anesthesiology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond where he stayed for 17 years until his present position at the University of Florida.