Dr. Sanders' primary areas of academic interest are the treatment of patients in cardiac arrest, the emergency care of older patients, biomedical ethics in emergency medicine and medical education. He is a tenured professor emeritus at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. He has served as Chair of the Residency Review Committee for Emergency Medicine, President of the Soceity for Academic Emergency Medicine and Chair of the ACLS Committee for the American Heart Association. In 2012, Dr. Sanders was elected to the  Institute of Medicine (now called National Academy of Medicine) and has served on an IOM committee assessing the progress in the treatment of patients in cardiac arrest.