Bohdan Pomahac, MD, Appointed Inaugural Roberta and Stephen R. Weiner Distinguished Chair in Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Bohdan Pomahac, MD, has been appointed the inaugural Roberta and Stephen R. Weiner Distinguished Chair in Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

 

Bohdan Pomahac, MD
Bohdan Pomahac, MD

Bohdan Pomahac, MD
Roberta and Stephen R. Weiner Distinguished Chair in Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Director, Plastic Surgery Transplantation, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Bohdan Pomahac, MD, was born and raised in the Czech Republic where he graduated from Palacky University School of Medicine. He trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in General Surgery and completed a fellowship in the Harvard Plastic Surgery Program.

Dr. Pomahac established the Plastic Surgery Transplantation Program at BWH, one of the world’s leading centers in face and vascularized composite tissue allotransplantation (VCA). As a pioneer in the field of VCA transplantation, he led the teams that performed the second partial face transplant and the first three full face transplant procedures in the United Stated. In 2011, the team performed the first successful bilateral upper extremity transplantation in the Northeast. Under Dr. Pomahac’s leadership, the BWH VCA transplant team has performed a number of additional face and hand transplants, and expanded research protocols to include lower extremity and abdominal wall transplantation.

Dr. Pomahac’s research team is currently working on implementation of immunosuppression minimization strategies in clinical trials, development of technology to extend the viability of tissues and other research topics related to VCA transplantation and plastic surgery. His clinical interests include facial reconstruction, reconstruction of oncologic defects including breast, esthetic surgery and microsurgery.

Stephanie A. Caterson, MD, Receives Bernard Lown Award for Excellence in Teaching

Stephanie A. Caterson, MD, associate surgeon in the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School has been awarded the Bernard Lown Award for Excellence in Teaching at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

About the Bernard Lown Award for Excellence in Teaching 

The Bernard Lown Award for Excellence in Teaching at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) was established in January 2010 to celebrate physicians who are outstanding clinical teachers.  The award has been named to honor Bernard Lown, MD, who was a senior physician at BWH, professor of cardiology emeritus at Harvard School of Public Health, and the founder of the Lown Cardiovascular Center and Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation.

Dr. Lown is a gifted clinician, a renowned bedside teacher and a research pioneer.  He co-founded with Evgeni Chazov, MD, of the former Soviet Union, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), and in 1985, they were co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of IPPNW.  Dr. Lown has been five times named master teacher of the American College of Cardiology and has been selected honorary member of a number of medical and cardiac societies around the world.

The Lown Teaching Award recognizes the very significant role that education plays in carrying out the BWH mission and the Institution’s deep commitment to the next generation of clinicians. The awardees are selected based on nominations from their HMS students and colleagues, in celebration of teaching excellence, innovation, patient-centered teaching and their ability to inspire.

Ravindra Uppaluri, MD, PhD, Named Division Chief of Otolaryngology at Brigham Health

Ravindra Uppaluri, MD, PhD Headshot
Ravindra Uppaluri, MD, PhD

Ravindra Uppaluri, MD, PhD, has been named the new chief of Otolaryngology at Brigham Health. He has served as an associate surgeon and director of Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) since 2016.

Dr. Uppaluri completed his medical degree and doctorate in genetics at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN. He trained in Otolaryngology at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO. He remained there as a faculty member for 16 years before moving to Boston with his wife, Chitra Uppaluri, MD, and three children in 2016.

Dr. Uppaluri, a leader in his field, has a deep understanding of head and neck tumor biology as well as integration of radiation, chemotherapy and surgical treatment modalities, including minimally invasive transoral laser microsurgery and endoscopic and open approaches to anterior skull base pathologies. He has been the primary investigator of clinical trials integrating small molecule and immunotherapeutics in the surgical management of head and neck cancers. He also leads a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded laboratory, focused on basic and translational approaches to head and neck cancers.