In 1913, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (PBBH) was established adjacent to the newly relocated Harvard Medical School "to care for the sick persons in indigent circumstances, residing in the county of Suffolk." PBBH was the nation's first hospital to offer a full-time academic staff model and the first to expand internship training into multi-year residencies with opportunities for further post-graduate specialization. PBBH was instrumental in establishing combined clinical and research training, and many of the nation's academic leaders graduated from the PBBH and BWH residencies.
In 1975, the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, the Robert Breck Brigham Hospital and the Boston Hospital for Women merged to form the Brigham and Women's Hospital; a non-profit institution dedicated to excellence in patient care, teaching and research.
A modern 698 bed facility now houses the programs and services of the Medical and Surgical Divisions of the merged hospital. The Brigham and Women's Hospital is a major teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School, and the staff and house staff physicians have Harvard University appointments. The great majority of the Medical Staff is geographically full-time at the hospital.
The patients served by the hospital include those from the inner city and the greater Boston community, as well as referral patients from a much wider area. In 2004, there were approximately 16,000 admissions to the in-patient medical service, 68,000 medical out-patient visits and 54,000 Emergency Department visits. The inpatient services provide intensive experience in acute care, more than half of the patients being admitted on an emergency basis.
Each member of the medical housestaff has a weekly outpatient session either at our hospital Primary Care Center or at one of several practice sites. The housestaff serve as the primary care providers for their patients, working as members of ambulatory care teams along with staff internists, nurse practitioners and secretarial staff.
Medical house staff also participate in both inpatient and ambulatory services at the West Roxbury Veterans Administration Medical Center. This facility has 60 acute care beds and 25 intensive care beds, a full-time Harvard and Boston University faculty and is the major VA system referral hospital for New England. The Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) is adjacent to BWH, and all clinical services are integrated. DFCI is a regional referral center for oncologic diseases, and considered to be among the top cancer treatment and research centers in the world. New ambulatory facilities at the DFCI see 400,000 yearly visits, and are the site of our combined hematology and oncology ambulatory practices.
In 1999, the Faulkner Hospital, a nearby community teaching hospital with a long tradition of teaching excellence, merged with the Brigham and Women's Hospital and now provides experiences in inpatient, general and ICU medicine and ambulatory care for our residents.
In 1994, the Brigham and Women's Hospital joined the Massachusetts General Hospital to form the Partners Health Care System. The decision to build an integrated health care system was motivated by the desire to permit the two institutions to continue to pursue, in the new health care environment, their traditional missions of providing outstanding clinical are, developing new health care information and training the next generation of leaders in both the practice and teaching of medicine. This partnership has been most fruitful and the merging of several of our sub-specialty programs over the last few years has raised them to new levels of clinical and academic excellence.
BWH Department of Medicine offers thirteen nationally recognized ACGME accredited fellowship programs and additional opportunities for advanced training, including the following:
Allergy and Immunology
Cardiac Electrophysiology
Cardiology
Endocrinology and Metabolism
Gastroenterology
General Internal Medicine
Hematology and Oncology
Infectious Diseases
Interventional Cardiology
Nephrology
Pulmonology and Critical Care
Rheumatology
Sleep Medicine
Recent new fellowship programs include palliative care and pain management, vascular medicine, advanced endoscopy, adult genetics and global health equity.
Continuing its rich tradition that has included many "firsts" (iron lung, organ transplant, DC cardioversion and others) and 4 Nobel Prizes, the Brigham is committed to staying in the forefront of patient care, research and education.
The Brigham and Women's Hospital, the Partners Health Care System, our faculty and our administration remain committed to providing our trainees with outstanding clinical and academic training. The remarkable combination of primary care and referral patients, a talented and experienced faculty, extraordinary academic and research opportunities and, above all, a commitment to providing our trainees the clinical, academic and personal resources to enable them to develop clinical excellence and achieve academic success, characterizes the medical residency programs at the Brigham and Women's Hospital.
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