Introduction
Welcome to the Department of Medicine at Boston University Medical Center! We appreciate your interest in learning more about our department and are eager to assist you. The Boston University Medical Campus contains the Boston Medical Center, and Boston University Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Dentistry. The Department of Medicine is affiliated with our two principal teaching hospitals, Boston Medical Center and the Boston Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
The department’s clinical programs provide a full range of clinical services to an extraordinarily diverse patient population from within Boston as well as the greater New England region. The clinical services have a distinguished history of providing care to vulnerable patient populations as well as tertiary care. Several of the department’s clinical programs (e.g., amyloid program, nutrition and weight management, scleroderma unit, vasculitis unit, pulmonary hypertension program, cardiomyopathy, and others) draw patients from throughout the world. The integration of the department’s compelling social mission with a rigorous academic tradition creates an especially rich environment for patient care, training, and discovery.
The department’s clinical programs have grown remarkably over the past three years. During the 2008-9 academic year, as an example, total ambulatory visits (251,000) increased by 8% while the number of new patient ambulatory visits increased by 23%. The department’s faculty increased wRVU’s by 16% over the preceding year and by 31% compared to 2006-7. The inpatient volume on the medical service is on pace to increase by 2% relative to 2007-8 to over 14,000 discharges. The department’s clinical programs are a critical part of the success of Boston Medical Center in meeting the patient care needs of our community. Remarkably, the ambulatory clinics at Boston Medical Center have the largest visit volume of any of the academic medical centers in Boston and Boston Medical Center is one of the most rapidly growing hospitals in the city as measured by percent increase in discharges over the past five years.
The Department of Medicine’s world-class research programs foster a spirit of inquiry and discovery in the department’s clinical and educational programs, and bring new diagnostic and treatment modalities to our patient population. These programs derive from a rich tradition of mentorship and critical thinking, and are fostered by a supportive and collegial environment that encourages faculty and trainees to work and learn collaboratively in preventing, diagnosing, and treating human disease. In the 2008-9 academic year, the Department’s faculty and trainees secured $104.7 million in research funds from governmental and private agencies, an increase of 11.4% compared to 2007-8. These figures do not include the funding of the National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratory ($12.25 m in 2008-9) or of faculty based at the Boston VA or Roger Williams Medical Center. The department’s funding from the National Institutes of Health is in the very top pier group of research-intensive Departments of Medicine in the United States.
The department has internationally renowned research programs in a number of areas. Examples include cardiovascular biology, pulmonary inflammation and immunology, obesity, androgen biochemistry and biology, diabetes, arthritis, alcohol/substance abuse, genetics and genomics, obesity, cancer biology, clinical epidemiology, amyloidosis, vasculitis, HIV/AIDS, medical informatics, renal glomerular disorders, geriatrics, and sickle cell disease. The most important longitudinal study of cardiac risk factors ever conducted – the Framingham Heart Study – is based at Boston University and is strongly supported by investigators in the Department of Medicine. The National Emerging Infectious Disease Institute funded by NIH, Boston University and Boston Medical Center will open in late 2010. This 200,000 sq ft research center will attract 20 research teams to conduct research on emerging infectious diseases and will contain state-of-the-art biocontainment facilities (Biosafety Level 4). This Center has already successfully recruited several world class investigators into many Departments, including the Department of Medicine, and will provide extraordinary opportunities for collaborative research in infectious diseases. Department faculty recently received a large award from the National Institutes of Aging to establish the Boston Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center. In addition, the department has recently established the Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research to provide resources and infrastructure for faculty to work in multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary teams that create new approaches to the discovery process.
The department’s educational programs have a long-standing tradition of training national leaders in discovery, clinical care, and medical education. The present faculty have enthusiastically embraced this tradition and are eager to promote the development of the next generations of leaders in medicine. The current educational programs include a medical residency program totaling 156 residents. The residency program includes a primary care training program funded by HRSA. We are particularly proud that this year’s intern class contains 17% under-represented minorities. In addition to our residency training program, the Department’s education programs include a Ph.D. program in Molecular Medicine and a long-standing successful program in Continuing Medical Education. The goals of the Department’s educational programs are to attract the most outstanding trainees, enforce rigorous standards of achievement, develop a learning environment and individualized programs of study that help trainees reach their full potential, and to create an exemplary mixture of professionalism, service, and integrity.
We appreciate your interest and hope you will contact us if we can provide any additional information about Boston University’s Department of Medicine.
David L Coleman, M.D.
Wade Professor and Chairman, Department of Medicine
