E Wesley Ely, MD

Dr. E. Wesley Ely (wes.ely@vumc.org) is a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with subspecialty training in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Ely’s research has focused on improving the care and outcomes of critically ill patients with ICU-acquired brain disease (manifested acutely as delirium and chronically as acquired dementia). He is the co-director of the Center for Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship (CIBS Center), which has amassed thousands of patients into cohort studies and randomized trials answering vital questions about ICU acquired brain disease and other components of ICU survivorship. His team developed the primary tool (CAM-ICU, translated into 30+ languages) which is used to measure delirium in ICU-based trials and clinically at the bedside in ICUs worldwide. Dr. Ely has been continuously federally funded (NIA and/or VA) for over 15 years. He has over 450 peer-reviewed publications and over 50 published book chapters and editorials. His wife is a pathologist and together they have 3 daughters who are the light of their lives.