Jennifer Gaudiani, MD
Class year: 2002
Specialties: Internal medicine and the medical management of eating disorders
Current practice: In fall of 2016, I opened the first full-time outpatient medical treatment clinic in the country that is dedicated to providing care to people who are struggling with disordered eating and eating disorders. The Clinic, which is located in Denver, also offers telemedicine treatment across the country.
Fond memory of BUSM: One of my fondest memories of BUSM is when Dr. Bob Witzburg, my third year medicine attending, gathered us all around on day one (of medicine, unbeknownst to me my future specialty) and told the third years, “Become an indispensable part of the team.” It inspired and dazzled me then, and it stuck with me all these years. I’ll never forget it. I’ve taught it to my students and residents ever since. I’m also deeply grateful as well that BU took a chance on me. Of 25 medical schools I applied to, I only was accepted to BU. I didn’t have all the classic numbers, but they took a chance on me. I feel a strong debt of gratitude to repay and think about it often. Having been denied by all the other med schools, I graduated AOA from BU and went on to become a Yale internal medicine resident and chief resident. I love my career, love being a doctor, and am so grateful to BU for giving me that chance.
Favorite professor or course at BUSM: I will be forever grateful to Dr. Dick AJ Brown, who passed away a few years ago. Dr. Brown started teaching me ob-gyn during my pre-clinical years, and he was brilliant. He could diagnose anything, seemingly determine the shape of a pelvis from across a room, and had a fierce dedication to teaching and to his patients. I precepted with Dr. Brown during my clinical years at BU, joining him in his private practice to learn more about women’s medicine. He didn’t stop at teaching superb diagnosis, treatment, and care. He believed in a particular grace of medicine, a decorum, which I loved. He would remind us, “You don’t FEEL something during a pelvic exam. The patient FEELS it. You experience it, appreciate it, palpate it. Never say you FEEL it.” Or he’d remind us not to point to our own body parts when presenting a patient’s exam. I still teach these concepts to my own trainees. He was an extraordinary influence on so many of us.
Most recent accomplishment: In 2016, I left my great job of 8 years at the ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders at Denver Health to found my own clinic, the Gaudiani Clinic (www.gaudianiclinic.com). It’s the first outpatient internal medicine practice in the country dedicated to adolescents and adults with eating disorders and disordered eating, of all shapes and sizes and all genders. Leaving as Medical Director of ACUTE was hard, as I loved the team and the patients, but it was time to fulfill a lifelong dream of my own outpatient practice. We opened in September 2016, and the idea is that patients in the community with eating disorders often have a therapist and a dietitian, and maybe a psychiatrist, but almost never an internist who really understands the medical aspects of this mental illness. I hope to keep people from getting as sick as the patients I took care of at ACUTE, to support a broad variety of patients in their communities, and to provide great support to those stepping out of higher levels of care as they reintegrate into their outpatient lives. It’s been an amazing learning experience, and I have the coolest team of women imaginable that I get to work with daily. Recently, I was announced as one of the 2017 Fellows of the Academy of Eating Disorders (FAED), the international academic eating disorder organization.
Hobbies outside of work: My husband and I moved to Denver in 2007, because we were excited at the prospect of living in Colorado, a slightly more Type B environment in which to plant our Type A selves. My daughters are now 13 and 10, and as a family we love to hike, ski, travel, indulge our obsession with the musical “Hamilton,” and read. Parenting is a true joy and has never been more fun.
Recent publications:
Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders, Routledge. Publication out Fall 2018
Invited chapter: “Disordered Eating and Eating Disorders” in textbook An Athletic Trainers’ Guide to Sports Nutrition by Damon Amato. (2017). Published by PNS & WSS Incorporated dba SLACK Incorporated (a Wyanoke Company)
Holmes SRM, Sabel AL, Gaudiani JL, Gudridge T, Brinton JT, Mehler PS. (2016). Prevalence and Management of Oropharyngeal Dysphagia in Patients with Severe Anorexia Nervosa: A Large Retrospective Review. Int J Eat Disord. 49(2):159-166.
Gaudiani JL. Mehler PS. Rare medical manifestations of severe restricting and purging: “Zebras,” missed diagnoses, and best practices. Int J Eat Disord 2015. In press.
Bennett, S. L., Dunn, T. M., Lashen, G. T., Grant, J. V., Gaudiani, J. L., Mehler, P. S. (2016). When avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder becomes life threatening: A case report of an adult male patient. Colorado Journal of Psychiatry and Psychology. In press.