UF Health Shands names new chief medical officer
Timothy Morey, M.D., previously served as chair of the department of anesthesiology
Timothy Morey, M.D.
Photo by Louis Brems
Jan. 11, 2023 — From a young age, Timothy Morey, M.D., knew health care was the path he hoped to pursue.
A Florida native who moved from city to city due to his father’s job in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, he grew up around military bases and learned the value of results-oriented work — a theme equally important in medicine.
While in medical school at the UF College of Medicine, he stumbled into the field of anesthesiology through a notice on a job board posted by Betty L. Grundy, M.D., chief of anesthesia at the Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center, who was recruiting student workers to help with a National Institutes of Health study that examined postsurgical cognitive function.
“What I like most about anesthesiology is you get to provide pain relief for patients,” said Morey, who built his career at the UF College of Medicine, becoming interim chair of the department of anesthesiology in 2013 and chair in 2015. “You help patients get through a vulnerable time in their life when they’re compromised socially, physically and emotionally through the perioperative period.”
Morey will continue to leverage his deep knowledge of UF and his experience in patient care as the chief medical officer for UF Health Shands and the senior associate dean for clinical affairs at the College of Medicine. Morey, who takes over the position from C. Parker Gibbs Jr., M.D., will serve a two-year term as the hospital’s physician leader. He will oversee patient care and clinical effectiveness while promoting a culture of safety and patient satisfaction and will chair both the hospital Board Quality & Safety Committee and the Medical Staff Quality & Operations Committee.
“I am confident in Dr. Morey’s leadership and his commitment to collaborating with physicians and staff to advance our core missions,” said Colleen Koch, M.D., M.S., M.B.A., dean of the UF College of Medicine and the Folke H. Peterson Dean’s Distinguished Professor.
A nationally respected clinician and scientist, Morey has co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. He is a member of the Association of University Anesthesiologists and is a peer reviewer for several professional journals.
His research interests include the safe use of residential perineural sheath catheters for postoperative analgesia, assessing medication adherence using exhaled breath, better operating room clinical decision-making and effects of volatile anesthetics on very young patients. His research has received grant funding from various institutions, including the NIH, the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. He is also the co-founder of four faculty entrepreneur businesses based on technology developed and patented at the University of Florida.
A triple Gator, Morey earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from UF and completed his residency in anesthesiology at UF Health Shands Hospital. Upon finishing a pharmacology research fellowship from the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research, he joined the UF faculty in 1997.
In leading the department of anesthesiology over the past decade, Morey modernized operations to better meet the needs of patients, students, residents, fellows, staff and faculty. His accomplishments include increasing residency and fellowship capacities to support the growing health system.
“UF has an atmosphere of collegiality and a team-based approach to getting the best outcomes and experiences you can for patients,” Morey said. “That’s something to be proud of, and it attracts people to want to work in that environment.”
During his time as chair, Morey oversaw tremendous growth in the department across all mission areas. In the clinical arena, advances over the past decade included designing a procedural sedation program in the pediatric emergency department, launching the vascular anesthesia and clinical informatics divisions and creating a pain medicine clinic. In the research realm, the department bid on and was approved to move the North American Malignant Hyperthermia Registry to UF, while faculty received grants from federal organizations including the NIH, Department of Defense and National Science Foundation and published over 1,000 peer-reviewed manuscripts. In the education sphere, the department created a pediatric anesthesiology fellowship, received accreditation for a neuroanesthesia fellowship, reworked medical student rotations and launched a combined two-year fellowship for critical care medicine and cardiothoracic anesthesiology.
For Morey, the most rewarding aspects of his time as chair included developing systems to improve the department and training the next generation of medical students and anesthesiologists.
“The whole experience taught me a lot about leadership, communications and human behavior,” Morey said. “This department taught me more than I could ever give back to it.”
When he’s not on UF’s campus, Morey can be found outdoors biking, boating or fishing or spending time with his wife and three children, all of whom are also UF graduates, and the family’s three dogs.
As he embarks on a new chapter of his career, he recalls one of the biggest lessons he learned in medical school: It takes a team to make it work.
“I’m looking forward to the new experiences and additional learning that this role will bring and meeting new partners here and around the region,” Morey said. “I hope to have a significant positive impact in not only taking care of our patients but also taking care of each other.”
