University Times

Ruben A. Tenicela, a pioneer in pain management and a long-time professor at Pitt’s School of Medicine, died March 27, 2006, of congestive heart failure. He was 76.

A native of Huancavalica, Peru, Tenicela earned his medical degree from the University of San Marcos, Peru, in 1957. It was there he met the late Peter Safar, known as the father of CPR, who was establishing a department of anesthesiology at San Marcos.

Following an internship at University Hospitals in Lima, Peru, Tenicela served a residency at the Cancer Institute in Lima. In 1959, he took another residency at Baltimore City Hospital in Maryland, where Safar was chief of anesthesiology.

In 1961, Tenicela came with Safar to Pitt, completed a residency in anesthesiology here and helped Safar establish the first academic Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, which today is the country’s largest academic anesthesiology department. While at Pitt, Tenicela also founded one the largest multidisciplinary pain control clinics in the United States.

He was appointed director of the Pain Control Clinic at Presbyterian Hospital in 1969, and later was named a professor of anesthesiology at the Pitt medical school, where he trained pain management physicians and anesthesiologists.

In 1977, Tenicela was one of 28 physicians who helped establish the American Pain Society.

He retired from Pitt in the early 1990s, said Peter M. Winter, professor emeritus of anesthesiology. “I was the department chairman when Dr. Tenicela was the director of a large, well-known multidisciplinary pain center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He was an acknowledged pioneer in that fledgling field,” Winter said.

Tenicela is survived by his son Anthony Tenicela, and siblings Hermelinda Tenicela De Leon, Precelinda Tenicela De Inga, Celia H. Tenicela, Joel Tenicela and Gloria Tenicela De Ferrer. He also is survived by many nieces and nephews.

The family plans a celebration of Tenicela’s life Aug. 11 on the Pitt campus. For more information, contact Anthony Tenicela via e-mail at ttenicela@yahoo.com.

Memorial contributions in Tenicela’s honor may be made to the American Red Cross, 225 Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh 15222, or ADRA, Angamos Oeste 770, Miraflores, Lima, 18, Peru.

—Peter Hart