AAP Robert M. Smith Award

Raeford E. Brown, Jr., MD, FAAP
2026 Robert M. Smith Recipient

Presentation: Friday, March 13, 2026; 12:10pm MT

A Tribute to Dr. Brown
By Timothy W. Martin, MD, MBA, FAAP, FASA and Rita Agarwal, MD, FAAP, FASA

The prestigious Robert M. Smith (RMS) Award is presented annually by the AAP Section on Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine to honor an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the field of pediatric anesthesiology and/or pediatric pain medicine. The AAP Section on Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine established the Robert M. Smith Award in 1986 to honor Dr. Smith for his contributions in the fields of pediatrics and pediatric anesthesiology. Dr. Smith was one of the pioneers in anesthesiology who felt strongly that one of the goals of the field should be to improve techniques and equipment for pediatric patients. We are quite excited to offer this tribute to Raeford E. Brown, Jr., MD, FAAP as the 2026 Robert M. Smith Awardee.

Raeford E. (“Rae”) Brown is now Emeritus Professor of Anesthesiology and Pediatrics at the University of Kentucky and Kentucky Children’s Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Dr. Brown completed his undergraduate and medical school education at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC. He then completed his first residency in pediatric medicine at the Children’s Hospital National Medical Center (affiliated with the George Washington University School of Medicine) in Washington, D.C. and a second residency in anesthesiology at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, VA. Dr. Brown went on to complete a fellowship in pediatric anesthesia, pain medicine, and critical care at the Children’s Hospital National Medical Center. Dr. Brown bears non-time limited certificates in pediatrics and anesthesiology from the American Board of Pediatrics and the American Board of Anesthesiology, respectively, and is further subspecialty certified in pediatric anesthesiology by the American Board of Anesthesiology. Dr. Brown has been a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics since 1985 and the American Society of Anesthesiologists since 2018.

Over the course of his long and incredibly productive professional career, Dr. Brown served on the faculty and filled leadership positions in three large academic health centers: the Bowman-Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), and the University of Kentucky. Leadership positions included Chief of Pediatric Anesthesiology for many years at all three institutions, Vice-Chair and Executive Vice-Chair positions at UAMS and the University of Kentucky, and Chief Operating Officer of the Medical College Physicians Group (faculty practice plan) at UAMS, among many others. Dr. Brown has received a large number of honors and awards throughout his career, and notably was designated a “Pioneer of Pediatric Anesthesia” at the 2011 winter-spring combined meeting of the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia and the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine (Dr. Brown was one of twenty-five physicians to receive this designation); he also received recognition by the American Academy of Pediatrics for Outstanding Service in Educational Excellence at the 2018 AAP Annual Leadership Forum.

As a leader and Executive Committee member of the AAP Section on Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Dr. Brown served on several subcommittees, including Membership, “Conscious” Sedation, Bylaws, and Guidelines prior to his initial election as Section Chairperson-Elect, a position in which he served from 1996-1998. Although he was forced to step down from this position due to prolonged illness, he later became Chairperson-Elect a second time, from 2016-2017, prior to serving as Chair from 2017-2019. Dr. Brown has actively filled similar committee-level positions in the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia. Significantly, Dr. Brown was an influential member of the little-known groups referred to as the “Pediatric Anesthesia Study Group” and the “Gang of Seven” from 1993-1998 that successfully created the plan to establish ACGME accreditation for pediatric anesthesiology fellowship programs, requiring approval and acceptance by not only the ACGME but also the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia, and the American Board of Anesthesiology.  This eventually led to ACGME accreditation and established subspecialty certification for pediatric anesthesiologists beginning in 2013.

At the United States federal health policy level, Dr. Brown served as Advisor to the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in 2015 and as a member of the FDA Anesthetic and Analgesic Drug Products Advisory Committee before serving as Interim Chair and Chair of the FDA Advisory Committee on Anesthetic and Analgesia Drug Products from 2016-2019. In the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Dr. Brown served on the Workgroup on Opioid Prescribing in the United States. A common and recurring theme of much of Dr. Brown’s advocacy work at the Federal and state (Arkansas and Kentucky) levels pertains to medication safety, particularly regarding opioids, the “opioid crisis,” and pediatric pain management. He was the inspiration and a driving force behind the creation of an AAP Opioid Prescription Taskforce and the recently published AAP Clinical Practice Guideline on “Opioid Prescribing for Acute Pain Management in Children and Adolescents in Outpatient Settings”.

Dr. Brown has written extensively on pain, pain management, dental anesthesia safety, end-of-life care, mental health, and medical ethics. Rae Brown is an incredible role model, gentleman, a lifelong learner, teacher, mentor, and friend to many in the pediatric anesthesiology and pain medicine community.

Tribute article was originally published in the AAP Section on Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine 2025 Fall Newsletter.