News and updates from the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital
Over the past year, the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital has continued to build on our proud history of clinical and academic achievement. This report highlights just some of the many examples of our ongoing commitment to excellence in clinical care, research and surgical education.
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Atul Gawande, MD, MPH
General and Endocrine Surgeon, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Founding Director and Chair, Ariadne Labs
CEO, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase Health Initiative
Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, is a surgeon, writer, and public health leader. He is CEO of the non-profit-seeking health care venture formed by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase to deliver better outcomes, satisfaction, and cost efficiency in care. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is the founding executive director and chairman of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally.
Atul has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1998 and has written four New York Times bestsellers: Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. He is the winner of two National Magazine Awards, Academy Health’s Impact Award for highest research impact on healthcare, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Award for writing about science.
Longtime philanthropists Cyndy and John Fish see Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, as a representative of the best that Brigham and Women’s Hospital has to offer patients—and to medicine at large.
Gawande, a BWH-trained surgeon and New York Times best-selling author, works to develop simple solutions to difficult medical issues facing society. In the five years since founding Ariadne Labs, a joint center between BWH and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, he has built a diverse team to explore critical topics such as surgical errors and end-of-life care—and find ways to improve them.
To advance this work, the Fishes recently gave $2 million to establish the Cynthia and John F. Fish Distinguished Chair in Surgery at BWH, with Gawande as the first incumbent. This endowed position will bolster his clinical, educational, and research projects—with an emphasis on improving healthcare delivery through Ariadne Labs.
“Atul is grappling with how to identify the soul of medicine,” says Cyndy. “He asks, ‘How do we more thoughtfully and compassionately take care of the next generation?’ He’s getting at the greater good of society.”
The Fishes point to the surgical checklists developed by Gawande that have been adopted worldwide. In addition, they say Gawande’s work to redefine end-of-life care is especially meaningful as they help Cyndy’s mother contend with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Cyndy and John’s generosity is helping our team’s work to design practical, scalable solutions for better care—more effective, more compassionate, and less wasteful care—at the most critical moments in people’s lives,” Gawande says. “I’m grateful that, of all the worthy needs they could support at the Brigham, they chose to invest in our goals.”
This latest gift continues the Fishes’ support of BWH, both as benefactors and ambassadors. Notably, John was recently appointed chair of the Board of Trustees and also serves as chair of the hospital’s Life.Giving.Breakthroughs. campaign.
“Cyndy and I are extremely proud of our affiliation with the Brigham,” says John. “The hospital provides world-class healthcare to patients and is addressing complex challenges associated with healthcare of the future. Atul does the same thing. He represents the core values of the Brigham.”
Ali Salim, MD, FACS, has been appointed associate chair of Surgical Critical Care in the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). In this new role, Ali is accountable for the 24-hour operational management, implementation and evaluation of staff and patients on the Surgical directed Intensive Care Units (S-ICU), including general surgery, trauma/burn, thoracic and cardiac surgery. Additionally, he will collaborate with the medical directors and chiefs of the Divisions of Trauma, Burn, Surgical Critical Care and Emergency General Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, Cardiac Surgery and the chair for the Department of Surgery in the development of S-ICU service programs and processes to serve the inpatient, outpatient and community needs, with implementation of effective cost containment measures.
Ali Salim, MD, FACS
Associate Chair of Surgical Critical Care, Department of Surgery
Division Chief, Trauma, Burn, Surgical Critical Care and Emergency General Surgery
Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Ali Salim, MD, FACS, is a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and the chief of the Division of Trauma, Burn, Surgical Critical Care and Emergency General Surgery at the Brigham and Woman’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston, MA. He leads a team of trauma specialists in providing expert, multidisciplinary care for thousands of trauma and burn patients each year.
Prior to joining BWH, Dr. Salim was an attending physician and program director of the General Surgery Residency Educational Program, and director of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Duke University, a master’s degree from Columbia University, and his medical degree from the Howard University College of Medicine. Dr. Salim completed his general surgery internship and residency as well as his fellowship in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.
Dr. Salim is both a Traumatologist and a Surgical Intensivist at BWH. He is a clinically active trauma, general, and critical care surgeon and devotes his time with equal intensity to research, surgical education and clinical service. His clinical interests focus on the care of the acutely ill trauma, emergency surgery and intensive care unit patient. Dr. Salim’s clinical research is focused on the care and outcomes of trauma patients, traumatic brain injury, improving the physiology of organ donors and improving the rate of organ donation. He has authored or co-authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications. His most recent research has focused on racial disparities in organ donation for which Dr. Salim was a principal investigator for a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).