Dr. George Lister, recently appointed as the Jean McLean Wallace Professor of Pediatrics, focuses his research on the factors affecting infants at risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
A 1973 graduate of the Yale School of Medicine, Lister serves as chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, chief of pediatrics at Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH), and physician-in-chief at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital.
Lister was a member of the Department of Pediatrics at the Yale-New Haven medical center for 25 years before moving in 2003 to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School (UTSW), where he was the Robert L. Moore Professor of Pediatrics and associate dean for education. From 2003 to 2011, he served as chair of pediatrics at UTSW and pediatrician-in-chief at the Children’s Medical Center of Dallas.
Lister completed his pediatric residency at YNHH, followed by a fellowship in pediatric cardiology and neonatology at the University of California-San Francisco. There, he began research that led to his specialization in critical care medicine, a field in its formative stages at the time. He returned to YNHH in 1978, where he rose to professor of pediatrics and anesthesiology, founded the Section of Critical Care and Applied Physiology at YNHH, and was its chief for more than 20 years. He also created a pediatric critical care fellowship program, which has trained a generation of pediatric critical care physicians across the country.
The Yale pediatrician’s longstanding research interest in oxygen transport has contributed significantly to the understanding of cardiopulmonary interaction in congenital heart disease and cardiorespiratory control in infants at risk for SIDS. Throughout his career, he also has played an active role in medical education, for which he has received national recognition. A member of the Institute of Medicine, he has had numerous national leadership roles in pediatric professional organizations and is co-editor of the 21st and 22nd editions of “Rudolph’s Pediatrics,” one of the most widely read pediatric textbooks in the world.