Tazeen Beg, MD

During my rotation in obstetrics as an Intern in India, a senior resident in Anesthesiology helped me intubate a newborn which piqued my interest so much so that I have been passionately doing it now for almost 27 years! I trained in Anesthesiology in India, and then again here at Stony Brook, and decided to raise my family amongst some of the very best on Long Island!  Providing anesthesia has now gone beyond the confines of the operating room into the realms of minimally invasive procedure areas with cutting-edge technology like the Endoscopy Unit and Interventional Radiology. As someone who has been working as the director of Non-Operating Room Anesthesia (as it is called) for a long time, I have special interest in providing safe anesthetic care in such areas. At Stony Brook Anesthesiology, we abide by the most fundamental principle in healthcare, ‘first do no harm’ and so, I have worked with teams from different departments to develop policies, protocols, and other quality initiatives to make these procedures comfortable and safe for our patients. Currently, I’m working with experts across the country to develop standardized policies for these areas, and curriculum for training the future anesthesiologists in this field. I am a member of several state and national professional anesthesiology societies, serve on their committees and have presented as a panel member on topics related to non-operating room anesthesia and patient safety.   

The COVID-19 pandemic brought us into spotlight as the frontline workers and experts in airway, so I volunteered to be on the airway team for the hospital. It taught me resilience, an appreciation for life and an even greater appreciation for my profession. Qualities like warmth, compassion, a caring attitude, being calm in a stressful situation, skilled at procedures, an eye for detail and academic excellence are our forte as anesthesiologists and I take them all very seriously. I love my job, and as they say, ‘when u love your job, you never work a day in your life'!