Nabel to Step Down as President of Brigham Health

Brigham Health President Betsy Nabel, MD, announced today that she will step down as president on March 1, 2021, after 11 years in this role. Anne Klibanski, MD, President and CEO of Mass General Brigham, will initiate a succession planning process in collaboration with the Boards of Trustees.

Throughout her tenure, Nabel’s focus has been on strengthening the organization for the future. She has been committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and is credited with recruiting the first female and underrepresented minority department chairs. Under her leadership, the hospital has fostered early-stage technology development activities through the creation of the Translational Accelerator and other programs of the Brigham Research Institute. These resources are dedicated to educating and supporting clinicians and researchers and encouraging the development of next-generation therapeutics and technologies faster and more efficiently. She’s led the Brigham through unprecedented financial challenges, growing revenues from $2.9 billion in 2010 to $4.3 billion in 2020, providing funds needed to support investments in facilities and technology infrastructure.

Since joining the Brigham as president and CEO in January 2010, Nabel has led the hospital’s efforts to:

  • Execute a $1.75 billion fundraising campaign, the largest hospital campaign in Boston’s history, of which $867 million was earmarked for research to ensure continued support for the pursuit of breakthroughs and innovation through biomedical research and discovery.
  • Transform the physical campus, including the establishment of the Hale Building for Transformative Medicine, Stoneman Centennial Park, the Smith Family NICU, the John and Cynthia Fish Rotunda, and restoration of many of the main common areas of the hospital.
  • Ensure seamless integration with Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital to improve patient experience, strengthen efforts to provide care in the local community and build capacity for more complex care to be delivered at the main campus.
  • Launch the Brigham Education Institute in 2016 to support the hospital’s legacy of providing world-class medical education to trainees, faculty and other health care professionals from across the globe.

During her tenure, the Brigham has routinely ranked on the U.S. News & World Report Honor Roll of Best Hospitals, received the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s LGBTQ Health Care Equality Leader designation, earned an A in Leapfrog’s Hospital Safety Grade program, and earned Press Ganey’s Pinnacle of Excellence Award in the category of Patient Experience in Inpatient Care for three consecutive years, starting in 2018.

Mehta Named Medical Director of the Brigham Burn Center

Anupama Mehta, MD, an associate surgeon in the Division of Trauma, Burn, Surgical and Critical Care, has been named medical director of the Burn Center.

Mehta graduated with honors from Rutgers College and obtained her medical degree from the University of Vermont. She completed a general surgery residency at Loyola University Medical Center and a burns and critical care fellowship at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Mehta is board certified in general surgery and surgical critical care. She is also a member of the American Burn Association (ABA) and the American College of Surgeons (ACS).

Mehta’s clinical interests include burn surgery and reconstruction, wound healing, scar tissue management and burn critical care. She also treats pediatric burns and patients with Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). Additionally, she has interests in faculty development and resident wellness initiatives.

Mehta succeeds Stephanie Nitzschke, MD, MS, who has served as medical director of the Burn Center since 2017.

Culley Departs for Penn Medicine

Deborah J. Culley, MD, executive vice chair for the Department of Anesthesiology Perioperative and Pain Medicine at the Brigham, has been named chair of the department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Penn Medicine. Culley will join Penn in the spring of 2021.

Culley has focused her clinical work on the care of severely ill patients undergoing a wide variety of intracranial, endovascular, and spinal procedures, and she has assumed major institutional and national leadership roles over the course of her career. Culley has a long track of funding from the National Institutes of Health and other influential funders for her research on the effects of anesthesia and surgery on the aged brain, which have demonstrated that these interventions can produce lasting changes in cognition and brain function.

Culley received her medical degree from the University of Washington School of Medicine, and completed her residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

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