Roger S. Wilson, MD, is an Emeritus Member of the Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine and of the Department of Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK).

Dr. Wilson knew from an early age he wanted to be a doctor. At age seven, he was hospitalized for tuberculosis and spent the next several years in and out of hospitals, battling the disease. Inspired by the physicians who treated him in his youth, Dr. Wilson later received his medical degree from New Jersey College of Medicine and completed both his residency and fellowship in anesthesiology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.

In 1991, Dr. Wilson joined MSK as Chair, Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, a position he held for 23 years. Throughout his tenure, he helped broaden the scope of MSK’s great anesthesiology program, expanding it into interventional radiology, the pediatric outpatient setting, and diagnostic procedures such as MRI and CT scanning. 

He was appointed Chair, Institutional Review Board (IRB), which protects the welfare of clinical research participants at MSK, in 1995. As clinical trials became more complex and the regulatory environment evolved, Dr. Wilson remained deeply committed to maintaining MSK’s best-in-class oversight processes and safeguarding the patients who participate in all of our clinical trials. Importantly, he was instrumental in helping MSK get accredited and reaccredited by The Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP). 

In 2015, Dr. Wilson was named Executive Director, Operating Room Operations, a role he held until his retirement on June 30, 2021. He was appointed to the Emeritus Staff on December 9, 2021.