K A Kelly McQueen, MD, MPH

Kelly McQueen is an anesthesiologist and public health consultant in Phoenix, Arizona.  Dr. McQueen practices anesthesia and is the Director of Graduate Medical Education for Valley Anesthesiology Consultants, Ltd. Dr. McQueen is an Adjunct Clinical Professor at the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale and a Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI).  She has special interests in the global burden of surgical disease, the global anesthesia crisis and the provision of surgical care following disasters and in humanitarian crises. Kelly co-directs the Burden of Surgical Disease Working Group, an international group committed to improving global surgical access, delivery and outcome evaluation.  She has been accepted for a Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellowship to examine the impact of surgery on the global burden of disease in an underserved area.

Dr. McQueen received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Colorado College, her MD from the University of Vermont College of Medicine, and a Masters of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.  She completed a residency in anesthesiology at the University of Arizona and the Mayo Clinic, and completed a fellowship in obstetrical anesthesia at the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. McQueen has published articles in peer reviewed journals, authored and co-authored numerous chapters on a variety of anesthetic topics, and has presented her research at national and international meetings throughout her career.  She has also published two children’s books, an elementary school curriculum for HIV/AIDS education, and an instructional video on HIV/AIDS for young children.   While at the University of Vermont she was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, and her book, What’s a Virus Anyway?  The Kid’s Book about AIDS, won the Vermont Book Publishers Association Special Merit Award and the Benjamin Franklin Children’s Book Award.

Kelly has had a career long commitment to disaster response and humanitarian aid.  She currently pursues this work through the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, serves on the ASA Global Humanitarian Outreach Committee, and directs the Global Surgical Consortium, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving surgical infrastructure in low income countries.  She has volunteered for more than 20 years for a number of humanitarian organizations including the American for Society of Anesthesiology’s Overseas Teaching program in Tanzania; Operation Smile in China, Jordan, Brazil, Peru, Mexico and Haiti; and for Doctors without Borders in Sri Lanka.  In 2005, Colorado College honored Dr. McQueen with the Benezet Lifetime Achievement Award for her humanitarian work.