Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia anesthesiologist Susan Nicolson, MD, received the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Congenital Cardiac Anesthesia Society.
Dr. Nicolson was honored March 12 at the CCAS annual meeting in Denver for her clinical, research and educational contributions to congenital cardiac anesthesia, according to a March 13 news release from the health system.
She joined CHOP in 1982 as the hospital’s first full-time pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist and became director of cardiac anesthesiology the following year. Over four decades, she helped define perioperative standards of care, collaborated on the development of complex surgical procedures and cared for more than 10,000 patients with congenital heart disease.
Dr. Nicolson has written more than 200 publications and played a key role in training more than 600 fellows in pediatric and cardiac anesthesia. She is a professor of anesthesiology at Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine and a founding member of the CCAS.
