The clinical nutrition support fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital is a one-year fellowship for physicians who have completed their medical residency or at least three years of their general surgery residency training. Physicians who are completing fellowships in other areas such as gastroenterology, critical care medicine, primary care medicine, anesthesia with a critical care focus, or those who have competed their training altogether and have an interest in nutrition support are also encouraged to apply. At the end of the training, the fellow is expected to sit for the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition examination and become a Certified Nutrition Support Clinician (CNSC).
Program Director
The program focuses on the management of patients who require nutrition support in the form of parenteral or non-oral enteral nutrition, noting that the physician’s role is different from, although complementary to, the role of other health care professionals, such as dietitians, nurses and pharmacists. By the end of the fellowship, trainees will have developed clinical expertise in the care of complex inpatients and outpatients who require nutrition support. This will include understanding the indications for and managing patients who require short- and long-term parenteral and enteral nutrition, as well as becoming skilled in the prevention and management of venous catheter and feeding tube complications.
To accomplish these goals, the fellow will be exposed to a variety of patient populations, including medical and surgical ICU, burn/trauma unit, cardiothoracic ICU, NICU, transplant service and other inpatient settings. The fellow will assist with the service’s management of complex outpatients requiring nutrition support, which consists of an average census of 30 ambulatory persons. These experiences are designed for the fellow to learn the evidence-based approach and nuances of caring for nutrition-dependent and critically ill patients.
Clinical exposure will be supported with a basic core curriculum of readings, didactic sessions and a formal research curriculum and training through Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Surgery and Public Health (CSPH).
Malcolm K. Robinson, MD, is an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and a board-certified general surgeon with a specialty in bariatric (weight loss) surgery. He is the director of the nutrition support service and director of the nutrition support fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Robinson serves on several national committees and is an editorial board member of Obesity Surgery. He routinely lectures nationally on topics of nutrition and critical care and bariatric surgery. He is also the author of numerous scholarly publications.
Reza Askari, MD, FACS, is an instructor in surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is board certified in both general surgery and surgical critical care. At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, he serves as the director of the surgical ICU, associate medical director of Trauma and attending physician for the nutrition support service. He is also the director of the surgical critical care fellowship. He has received numerous awards for his teaching and training of students. The author of several articles, his research focuses on surgical infections and nutrition.
Kenneth Christopher, MD, SM, is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a board-certified nephrologist and intensivist, who studies critical care outcomes and performs clinical trials. At Harvard, Dr. Christopher is the associate director of Global Education, and he directs clinical research training courses in Dubai and Shanghai. At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, he is the director of the Nathan E. Hellman Memorial Laboratory, studying critical illness outcomes and interventional clinical trials; the assistant program director of the internal medicine residency training program; and he provides consultative inpatient care in renal medicine and nutrition support, primarily in the intensive care unit environment. Author of numerous research articles, Dr. Christopher is a frequent international speaker at major conferences.
Established at Brigham and Women's Hospital in 2005, the CSPH is a joint program of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. The center’s connectivity to these rich academic environments provides essential access to interdisciplinary expertise and resources both inside and outside of surgery. In their efforts to transform practice and influence public policy, CSPH works with a diverse set of collaborators, including academic institutions, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, nationally and internationally.
A critical component of CSPH services is the opportunity for structured mentorship, whereby senior faculty members mentor junior faculty and fellows to foster the research and teaching skills necessary to become successful investigators. Currently, there are 25 CSPH fellows and trainees who work with a core faculty of 37 individuals.
The NSS fellow will attend weekly research meetings at CSPH and work on a short database research project with NSS attending and CSPH senior staff. The 12-month program will include projects such as identifying an appropriate topic for literature review, submitting an IRB, working with CSPH analysts, including the director of Quantitative Science/HSR Training, and writing up the final product for publication prior to leaving the fellowship. The fellow will also work with NSS faculty on other scholarly activities as time permits, including chart reviews, writing chapters and working on projects reasonably expected to be completed within the one-year fellowship.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital is a 750-bed Harvard teaching hospital. The one-year fellowship consists of inpatient and outpatient care provided at the hospital and its on-site clinic.
Please submit the following for consideration for the fellowship. Interviews are granted on a rolling basis by date of receipt. The application deadline is February 1.
Submit the above to the director of the program via mail or email:
Malcolm K. Robinson, MD
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Department of Surgery
75 Francis Street
Boston, MA 02115
mkrobinson@partners.org
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