From the Division Head: Celebrating our 60th Anniversary
It is a great honor to serve as the fourth Division Head for Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine (PCCSM) at the University of Washington.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of our Division—originally founded in 1965 as the Division of Respiratory Diseases by Dr. John Butler, who built it from a single faculty member into a thriving team of 28 faculty and 52 staff. Over the ensuing decades, our Division’s scope and influence expanded, first to include critical care medicine and, in 2017, to formally incorporate sleep medicine.
Today, our community encompasses 227 faculty, fellows, researchers, advanced practice providers, and staff spanning five clinical sites across Seattle—UW Medical Center – Montlake, Harborview Medical Center, UW Medical Center – Northwest, the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. The Division houses active and dynamic centers: Center for Lung Biology at South Lake Union, the Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence, the Center of Interstitial Lung Disease and the Sepsis Center for Research Excellence (SCORE-UW).
Our Division’s history is distinguished by enduring leadership and a shared commitment to discovery, education, and service. With only three prior Division Heads since its founding, the continuity of vision has nurtured a culture of collaboration and scientific rigor. For six decades, our faculty have advanced knowledge across the spectrum of respiratory health—from foundational studies in pulmonary physiology to pioneering investigations in critical illness, lung injury, advanced lung disease, sleep medicine, and respiratory epidemiology. The Division’s scientific reach now includes molecular and cellular biology, translational research, data science, health services research and community-based studies addressing health inequities.
Our programs, including those that aim to address socioeconomic challenges and health care disparities, serve all individuals with dignity and respect, with a steadfast commitment to providing equal opportunity to all.
Our ACGME-accredited fellowship programs in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, and Sleep Medicine are central to our educational mission. Through these programs, we train exceptional physicians who will become leaders in clinical care, research, and academic medicine. A hallmark of our Division is our strong commitment to mentorship, which is woven into the fabric of who we are. A central mission of the Division has long been to foster the development of physician-scientists—an enduring commitment exemplified by our NIH T32 training award, continuously funded for over 45 years, one of the longest-standing such programs in the nation.
Our Division faculty continue to excel in research productivity and impact. In 2024 alone, our T32 mentors secured approximately $46 million in research funding and contributed to over 300 publications spanning high-impact journals across the fields of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine.
Since assuming this role, I have focused on deepening connection across our diverse sites and disciplines to unify and amplify our collective impact. Through site visits, faculty engagement sessions, and our Division retreats, we have aligned around shared priorities—enhancing connection, celebrating accomplishment, and empowering innovation through inclusive engagement. These conversations have led to tangible actions, including new mechanisms to promote collaboration and faculty engagement through a Social Committee and three Advisory and Steering Committees dedicated to our scientific, educational, and clinical missions.
Looking ahead, we are advancing strategic initiatives to further elevate our research enterprise. Supported in part by endowed chair resources, we are developing a Clinical Trials Core, Data Science Core, and Translational Biorepository Core to enhance our capacity for integrative, data-driven, and team-based science. These resources will support investigators—particularly early-career faculty—in generating transformative insights and securing sustained extramural funding.
Our Division continues to be recognized nationally and internationally for its scientific contributions, educational excellence, and clinical innovation. We are proud of our strong record of NIH funding, our long-standing T32 training program, and collaborations that bridge basic, translational, and clinical research to improve health outcomes.
As we commemorate six decades of excellence, we honor the pioneering spirit of our founders while embracing the opportunities of the future. I am continually inspired by the dedication, intellect, and humanity of our faculty and trainees. Together, we will continue to advance discovery, educate the next generation of leaders, and provide compassionate, equitable care to all those we serve.
— Reena Mehra, MD, MS
Division Head, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine
Bruce A. Montgomery American Lung Association Endowed Chair
