Jennifer Elia

Biography

Jennifer Elia, M.D. is a Clinical Associate Professor and Program Director of the Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine Fellowship in the Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care at the UCI Health. She received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Sidney Kimmel Medical College and completed her Anesthesiology residency at UC Irvine, where she served as Chief Resident. She then completed an Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine Fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Prior to joining UC Irvine in 2020, Dr. Elia served as Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center from 2016 to 2019.

Dr. Elia's clinical and research interests focus on critical care management of complex cardiothoracic patients, as well as perioperative delirium and postoperative cognitive decline in older adults. She serves as principal investigator for a study examining patient and caregiver awareness of cognitive changes after surgery and as co-investigator on multiple studies including a multi-center, NIH-funded trial investigating the effects of intravenous acetaminophen on delirium incidence in cardiac surgical patients. Her work has been published in journals including Anesthesiology Clinics, Critical Care Medicine, and Chest, and she has contributed to chapters on perioperative fluid management and mechanical ventilation.

Dr. Elia serves on multiple hospital and departmental committees at UC Irvine, including the Medical Ethics Committee, Quality and Safety Oversight Committee, and Ventricular Assist Device Selection Committee. She is Course Director for Medical Ethics education for first and second-year medical students and serves as core faculty for the Point-of-Care Ultrasound program and the Anesthesiology Residency Program. She is an active member of the Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists, serving on the Education Committee and Program Director Advisory Council, and the Society of Critical Care Medicine, where she previously served on the Resident and Graduate Medical Education Committee.

Education

• M.D., Sidney Kimmel Medical College, 2011
• B.S. in Neurobiology, Physiology, & Behavior, University of California, Davis, 2007

Distinctions

• Chairman's Recognition Award, UT Southwestern, Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Management, 2019
• Resident Research Award, UC Irvine, Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care, 2015