Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) is a 651-bed tertiary referral center located in the heart of the Longwood Medical area in Boston, Massachusetts. BIDMC is also a major teaching partner of Harvard Medical School and is part of Beth Israel-Lahey Health, a network of 13 academic medical centers and community hospitals which employ over 4,000 doctors across greater New England.

The Division of Urology is considered one of the areas foremost programs in robotic urologic surgery and GU oncology.  A robust multidisciplinary approach to GU oncology is the backbone of our practice, which includes weekly multidisciplinary clinics in both kidney and prostate cancer as well as a weekly multidisciplinary GU tumor board.   Currently 2 fellowship-trained urologists perform high volume robotic surgery and 2 other fellowship-trained urologists perform high volume endourology.  BIDMC has 4 dual-console robotic systems and one Single Port robotic system.

Clinical Training:

1-year Advanced Clinical Training Program (Laparoscopy/Robotics) with an emphasis on oncology training: 

The advanced clinical training program is a one-year program that is recognized by the Endourological Society, and provides exposure to high volume minimally invasive urologic surgery, with an emphasis on GU oncology.   We have the area’s largest experience with intracorporeal urinary diversion and also perform robotic RPLND and other complex extirpative and reconstructive cases.  Exposure to complicated benign robotic reconstruction cases is also provided (robotic simple prostatectomy, HoLEP, pyeloplasty, ureteral reimplant, robotic pyelolithotomy).    As we are an area referral center for kidney cancer, an especially high volume of minimally invasive and open kidney cancer cases is typical.

The fellow is included in our teaching mission as we have a BIDMC Urologic Surgery residency program which matches 2 residents per year.  The fellow is expected to guide residents through cases after an introductory period on service. The fellow also has an individual surgical block at both BIDMC and our community hospitals.  In addition to  his/her surgical responsibilities, the fellow functions as a junior attending by running a resident clinic one half day per week and taking call as an attending (approximately one week in 12).

Academic Opportunity: 

Our fellows are given the opportunity to participate in the Harvard School of Public Health Summer Program in Clinical Effectiveness.  The PCE is an intensive 15 credit 7-week summer program providing clinical investigators with fundamental training in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics.  The incoming fellow will be responsible for applying to the PCE and BIDMC will provide full funding to cover all costs (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/clinical-effectiveness/).  There are no clinical responsibilities during this 7 week program (July – mid August).  In mid-August the fellow will then begin full clinical duties at BIDMC.   All fellows are expected to participate in this program which provides a fantastic foundation in health outcomes research allowing them to become more effective clinicians, researchers or health care administrators.

Research Opportunity:  The fellow has ample opportunity to contribute to our research mission during the year.  We have a clinical research team led by 2 attending urologists and also consist of 3 full-time research staff.  Multiple IRB-approved ongoing databases provide opportunity for clinical research and we are active participants in several large multi-center studies.  Our research program focuses on several areas including evaluating health-related quality of life after kidney, prostate and bladder surgery, active surveillance in prostate and kidney cancer, and evaluating new technologies and techniques in minimally invasive GU surgery.  The fellow is strongly encouraged to ask new questions and bring new ideas to our research program.

 *Acceptance is contingent upon completion of an ACGME accredited North American residency training program in urology

Previous and Current Fellows