Karim Ladha, MD, MSC

Dr.-Karim-Ladha headshot
Evelyn Bateman Recipe Chair in Ambulatory Anesthesia and Women’s Health, Women’s College Hospital Research and Innovation Institute
Staff Physician, Department of Anesthesia and Pain Management, Toronto Western Hospital
Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Toronto
Affiliate Scientist, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital
Co-Director, PINNACLE Research Group
Dr.-Karim-Ladha headshot

Dr. Karim Ladha is an anesthesiologist and clinician-scientist at the University of Toronto. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from Brown University and his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Ladha completed his residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital and pursued additional fellowship training in cardiac anesthesia at Toronto General Hospital.

He leads a diverse research program and conducts innovative studies in several areas, including acute and chronic pain, the use of anesthetic interventions to address mental health conditions, and the impact of psychosocial factors in perioperative medicine. Dr. Ladha has been awarded $15.6 million in peer-reviewed grant funding, with $7.8 million as principal investigator or co-principal investigator, from agencies such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

He has received several accolades, including a Career Scientist Award from the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society, the International Anesthesia Research Society’s Mentored Research Award, and the IMPACT Award in Anesthesia. Dr. Ladha has published over 130 manuscripts, cited approximately 2,500 times, with first or last authorship in high-impact journals such as JAMA, BMJ, and Annals of Internal Medicine. His research has also garnered attention in national and international media outlets, including CNN, the LA Times, The Globe and Mail and Nature.

MSc, Epidemiology, Harvard University School of Public Health

MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

AB, Economics, Brown University

  • Career Scientist Award, No Laughing Matter: The Use of Anesthetics to Treat Depression. Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society (2023)
  • Interprofessional Teaching Award. Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Toronto (2023)
  • New Investigator Award, Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society (2019)
  • New Investigator Award, Initiative for Multicentre Pragmatic Anesthesiology Clinical Trials (IMPACT) (2019)
  • International Anesthesia Research Society Mentored Research Award (IARS) (2018)

  • Chronic pain
  • Perioperative medicine
  • Psychedelics
  • Psychosocial determinants of health