Maria Markakis Zestos, M.D., professor of Anesthesiology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, has been appointed interim associate dean of Graduate Medical Education and designated institutional officer for the school’s residency programs.
Her appointment, effective Feb. 16, was announced by Mark E. Schweitzer, M.D., dean of the School of Medicine and vice president of WSU Health Affairs.
Dr. Zestos is chief of Anesthesiology at Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Her clinical interests include pediatric cardiac anesthesia and resident education. Her research interests include postoperative nausea, postoperative pain and emergence delirium.
A mentor to hundreds of medical students and residents, Dr. Zestos served as a member of the Graduate Medical Education Internal Review Committee for Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship, and the Graduate Medical Education Internal Review Committee for the WSU/DMC Nephrology Fellowship. As the WSU Pediatric Anesthesia Fellowship research mentor, she was responsible for the research activity of all fellows in the program from 2014 to 2020. She was instrumental in the development of WSU’s advanced fellowship program in Pediatric Cardiovascular Anesthesiology, launched in 2018.
Program director of the WSU/Detroit Medical Center Pediatric Anesthesia Fellowship from 1997 to 2013, Dr. Zestos is a member of the Resident Review Committee for the WSU/DMC Anesthesiology program, and of the Promotions and Tenure Committee. She has served on the Michigan Society of Anesthesiologists Advisory Committee on Residency Programs since 2006.
A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Dr. Zestos joined the faculty in 1997. She earned her medical degree from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1987, followed by an internship and residency in Pediatrics at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland. She completed an anesthesiology residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and a fellowship in Pediatric Anesthesiology at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.
Certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in both anesthesiology and pediatric anesthesiology, she is a member of the Michigan Society of Anesthesiologists Board of Directors and the Pediatric Anesthesia Leadership Council for the Society of Pediatric Anesthesia. Dr. Zestos also is a member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia and the Congenital Cardiac Anesthesia Society.
Dr. Zestos replaces Tsveti Markova, M.D., who has overseen Wayne State University’s sole-sponsored residency programs since 2011. Dr. Markova has stepped down to concentrate on national issues and research.