Christopher D Spencer, MD

Christopher Spencer, MD, is a board-certified anesthesiologist in the Division of Cardiac and Thoracic Anesthesia.

He specializes in adult cardiac, thoracic, and vascular anesthesia. He joined the UVA faculty in July 2020. He completed fellowship training in adult cardiothoracic anesthesia at Emory University and his anesthesiology residency training at UVA.

“Being an anesthesiologist provides me an opportunity to help patients get through a difficult and stressful time. It is both challenging and rewarding,” Dr. Spencer shares.

He adds, “Patients don’t often choose to come to the operating room and undergo surgery. In fact, for the most part, they would rather be almost anywhere else. My job is to make their experience as comfortable and safe as possible so they can recover and get back to doing what they love.”

Dr. Spencer was born in Tennessee, but grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He attended Arizona State University, then completed a master’s degree in molecular biology at the University of Göttingen in Germany. “Afterwards, I worked in a research lab at the Mayo Clinic, studying tumor immunology before attending medical school at the University of Nebraska,” he says.

He and his wife have 2 boys. “I have lived and traveled all over the world, and am a dual citizen in both Germany and the United States, but we fell in love with Charlottesville and made this our home.”