July 19, 2023 Meeting

Topic: “PRIMUM NON NOCERE”

A Pennsylvania native, Dr. Chris Yeakel somehow graduated from Pennsylvania State University with BA and MD degrees.  He discovered the south in 1980, during his intern year in the departments of Medicine and Pediatrics, University of North Carolina Hospitals, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  After that intern year Dr. Yeakel was commissioned by the United States Public Health Service and served two years as a general medical officer living and working on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. While serving the Lakota Tribal members on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation he had an opportunity to combine both his passion for medicine and flying.

In 1983, he returned to southern climes to complete his anesthesiology residency and fellowship (pediatrics and regional anesthesia) at Emory University in Atlanta.  He came to Columbia in 1986 and spent his career since within an anesthesiology group practicing primarily at Richland Hospital (now Prisma Richland).  While his private practice group provided anesthetic care for all specialties, Dr. Yeakel focused his clinical practice upon pediatric anesthesiology including the introduction of regional anesthetic techniques for neonates through teen years.

Professionally, Dr. Yeakel is a diplomate of the American Board of Anesthesiology with sub-specialty certification by that Board in Pediatric Anesthesiology.  Dr. Yeakel has been involved in organized medicine at large throughout his career.  He has served as President of the Columbia Medical Society, on the Executive Committee of the South Carolina Society of Anesthesiologists, as a Director on the National Board of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, and just finished a year serving as the President of the South Carolina Medical Association.

He retired from the practice of anesthesiology at the end of 2020 and now is working as a FAA designated Aviation Medical Examiner in the Southern Region.