Dr. Tetsuro Sakai is a Professor of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine and a Professor of the Clinical Translational Science Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In addition, he is Vice-Chair for Faculty Promotion and Development at the Department. He is also a board-certified staff anesthesiologist (Hepatic and Intestinal Transplantation Anesthesia) in the UPMC Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine.

Dr. Sakai earned his MD and his PhD (cardiovascular surgery) from Kyoto University in Japan. After internship and cardiovascular surgery residency at Tenri Hospital (an affiliated hospital of Kyoto University), Dr. Sakai completed both clinical and research fellowships at the Division of Cardiovascular Surgery, the Toronto Hospital, the University of Toronto before relocating to Pittsburgh in 1999.

Dr. Sakai worked as a visiting instructor of thoracic organ transplantation surgery at UPMC from 1999 to 2001. Upon completing an anesthesiology residency at UPMC in 2005, he joined the faculty and became a member of hepatic transplantation anesthesiology.

Dr. Sakai’s current research interests include education in anesthesiology (resident research education); liver transplantation anesthesiology; and quality improvement in anesthesiology.

Since 2013, Dr. Sakai has been elected to the Association of University Anesthesiologists. He received a Master of Health Administration from Pennsylvania State University in 2017. In addition, he is the President of the Society for the Advancement of Transplant Anesthesia (SATA) since 2021.