Alik Farber, MD
James Utley Professor and Chair of Surgery
Biography
Alik Farber, MD, MBA, is interim Chair of the Departments of Surgery and Radiology at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. Dr. Farber is also interim Chief of the Department of Surgery at Boston Medical Center, where he is Associate Chief Medical Officer for Surgical Services and Chief of the Division of Vascular & Endovascular Surgery.
After earning his undergraduate degree from Brown University, Dr. Farber received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He completed residency in general surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, a vascular surgery fellowship at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and an endovascular surgery fellowship at Southern Illinois School of Medicine. He received an MBA from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.
Dr. Farber began his career in 1999 as a vascular surgeon in private practice at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. In 2005, he was recruited to Boston Medical Center as an attending vascular surgeon and joined the faculty of the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor, rising to full Professor in 2015. Throughout his tenure, Dr. Farber has been involved in diverse academic, clinical operational, and leadership roles.
Dr. Farber’s clinical practice focuses on peripheral artery disease. An internationally recognized authority on limb ischemia, he has been invited to contribute to multidisciplinary consensus statements and has lectured across the world on this topic. Dr. Farber has served as principal investigator (PI) for multiple clinical trials involving wound care, intermittent claudication, and deep-vein arterialization. Most recently he served as co-PI of the landmark Best Endovascular versus Best Surgical Therapy in Patients with Critical Limb Ischemia (BEST-CLI) trial. Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, this international, multicenter, randomized controlled trial compared traditional bypass surgery with endovascular treatment for patients with chronic limb threatening ischemia. More than 1,800 patients at 150 sites across North America, Europe, and New Zealand were enrolled, with results published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2022. Dr. Farber, who chairs the BEST-CLI Publications Committee, continues to be actively involved in trial dataset analysis and research dissemination through the BEST-CLI Collaborative, funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
A fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a distinguished fellow of the Society of Vascular Surgery, Dr. Farber frequently serves in leadership roles for professional organizations. Currently, he is Secretary of the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery and Treasurer of both the New England Society for Vascular Surgery and the Massachusetts Chapter of the American College of Surgeons.
Dr. Farber has authored more than 260 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 30 book chapters, and has edited two textbooks. He has given more than 160 presentations in over 20 countries.
Other Positions
- Surgeon-in-Chief, Boston Medical Center
- Professor, Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Surgery, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
- Associate Chief Medical Officer for Surgical Services , Boston Medical Center
- Section Chief, Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Surgery, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
- Professor, Vascular & Interventional, Radiology, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
- Member, Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research, Boston University
Education
- Harvard Medical School, MD
- Brandeis University, MBA
- Brown University, BS
Publications
- Published on 11/26/2024
Hamouda M, Rogers UH, Farber A, Rowe VL, Conte MS, Malas MB. Impact of Skin Closure with Staples Versus Sutures on Perioperative Outcomes Following Lower Extremity Bypass Surgery. J Vasc Surg. 2024 Nov 26. PMID: 39608414.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 10/4/2024
McGinigle KL, Doros G, Alabi O, Brooke BS, Vouyouka A, Hiramoto J, Charlton-Ouw K, Strong MB, Rosenfield K, Menard MT, Farber A, Giles KA. Female patients have fewer limb amputations compared to male patients in the BEST-CLI trial. J Vasc Surg. 2024 Oct 04. PMID: 39368637.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 9/25/2024
Ochoa Chaar CI, Malas M, Doros G, Schermerhorn M, Conte MS, Alameddine D, Siracuse JJ, Yadavalli SD, Dake MD, Creager MA, Tan TW, Rosenfield K, Menard MT, Farber A, Hamdan A. The impact of diabetes mellitus on the outcomes of revascularization for chronic limb-threatening ischemia in the BEST-CLI trial. J Vasc Surg. 2024 Sep 25. PMID: 39332785.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 9/23/2024
Farber A, Menard MT, Conte MS, Rosenfield K, Schermerhorn M, Schanzer A, Powell RJ, Chaar CIO, Hicks CW, Doros G, Strong MB, Leers SA, Motaganahalli R, Stangenberg L, Siracuse JJ. Prosthetic conduits have worse outcomes compared with great saphenous vein conduits in femoropopliteal and infrapopliteal bypass in patients with chronic limb-threatening ischemia. J Vasc Surg. 2024 Sep 23. PMID: 39321895.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 7/26/2024
Menard MT, Farber A, Doros G, McGinigle KL, Chisci E, Clavijo LC, Kayssi A, Schneider PA, Hawkins BM, Dake MD, Hamza T, Strong MB, Rosenfield K, Conte MS. The impact of revascularization strategy on clinical failure, hemodynamic failure, and chronic limb-threatening ischemia symptoms in the BEST-CLI Trial. J Vasc Surg. 2024 Dec; 80(6):1755-1765.e4. PMID: 39069016.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 6/26/2024
Zhu M, Farber A, King E, Alonso A, Kobzeva-Herzog A, Cooper J, Lotfollahzadeh S, Chitalia VC, Siracuse JJ. Early Kidney Transplantation or Conversion to Peritoneal Dialysis after First-Time Arteriovenous Access Creation. Ann Vasc Surg. 2024 Nov; 108:57-64. PMID: 38942372.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 6/24/2024
Venermo MA, Farber A, Schanzer A, Menard MT, Rosenfield K, Dosluoglu H, Goodney PP, Abou-Zamzam AM, Motaganahalli R, Doros G, Creager MA. Reduction of Major Amputations after Surgery versus Endovascular Intervention: The BEST-CLI Randomised Trial. Eur J Vasc Endovasc Surg. 2024 Jun 24. PMID: 38925339.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 6/24/2024
Heindel P, Fitzgibbon JJ, McKie K, Goudreau B, Dieffenbach BV, Aicher BO, Belkin M, Farber A, Menard MT, Hussain MA. Real-World Vein Mapping Practice Patterns Before Endovascular Treatment of Limb Ischemia. J Surg Res. 2024 Sep; 301:62-70. PMID: 38917575.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 6/21/2024
Koh DJ, Eslami MH, Sung E, Seo HH, Lin B, Lin A, Cheng TW, Alonso A, King E, Farber A, Siracuse JJ. Medicare billing and utilization trends in vascular surgery. J Vasc Surg. 2024 Oct; 80(4):1260-1268.e1. PMID: 38909918.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 6/21/2024
Giles KA, Farber A, Menard MT, Conte MS, Nolan BW, Siracuse JJ, Strong MB, Doros G, Venermo M, Azene E, Rosenfield K, Powell RJ. Surgery or endovascular therapy for patients with chronic limb-threatening ischemia requiring infrapopliteal interventions. J Vasc Surg. 2024 Nov; 80(5):1515-1524. PMID: 38908805.
Read at: PubMed
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