A tribute to a brilliant mind: Jerry Vloka, MD, PhD.

As the recipient of the Gaston Labat Award, I was given the privilege to publish a piece in Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine on a topic of my choosing. Most awardees elect to write about trends in the field, offer a synopsis of their own research, or pay tribute to an important, but long deceased, contributor to the science and practice of regional anesthesia. But writing accolades to those who are long gone has always puzzled me, for it seems more fitting to show appreciation for those who still draw breath, those on this side of the rainbow. This way, they, too, can enjoy the rewarding feedback on how their colleagues value their hard work and dedication. It did not take much deliberation on my part to choose the story of a truly unique living individual whose contributions to regional anesthesia have not only influenced the practice but also substantially shaped its research trends. Indeed, much of my award also belongs to Jerry Darius Vloka, MD, PhD. It was Jerry’s zeal for new knowledge, vision for the future of regional anesthesia, endless energy, and spirited leadership that drove our joint contributions to the field, including the foundation of the New York School of Regional Anesthesia. Rolling the tape back some 20 years brings memories of my residency in anesthesiology under the leadership of Professor Daniel Thys, MD, in the vaults of St Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, NY. It was the early 1990s, and Jerry and I were second-year residents in anesthesiology. We were awed by the ability of peripheral nerve blocks (PNBs) to provide anesthesia or analgesia for patients who were unfit for general or spinal anesthesia due to frail medical status or anticoagulation. However, we both felt that the PNB techniques of the day were poorly defined and often mere reproductions of techniques published in outdated textbooks. It seemed that new techniques were devised based on logic relying on the perfect anatomical drawings in textbooks, instead of crafting PNB techniques in the anatomy laboratory followed by formal clinical trials to assure their efficacy. Jerry maintained that just as surgery relies on surgical anatomy, and pathology on pathologic anatomy, it was about time that regional anesthesia embarked on developing functional regional anesthesia anatomy, a term that justly should be credited to his name. At that time, Jerry and I were conducting research projects independently and had presented our work separately at various