Boston, MA – In November of 2008, Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) became the second hospital in the country to be recognized as having a Comprehensive Academic Sleep Program of Distinction by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), which sets standards and promotes excellence in sleep medicine health care, education and research.
AASM endorses the concept of academic sleep centers becoming independent interdisciplinary units. In 2001, BWH was one of the first hospitals in the nation to establish an independent Division of Sleep Medicine within the Department of Medicine. In recognizing the BWH Division of Sleep Medicine as a Comprehensive Academic Sleep Program of Distinction, the AASM is providing nationwide recognition for the success of this academic program in fostering cutting-edge sleep research, training the next generation of physicians specializing in sleep disorders medicine, and providing outstanding clinical care for patients with sleep disorders.
The academic sleep program at BWH is led by co-directors, Charles A. Czeisler, PhD, MD, Chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine, and Atul Malhotra, MD, Medical Director of the BWH Sleep Disorders Research Program. Dr. Czeisler said, “By creating an independent academic unit to house sleep medicine at BWH, the leadership of the Department of Medicine here enabled us to attain this achievement.”
The BWH Division of Sleep Medicine now has 31 faculty and 20 post-doctoral fellows. Its clinical sleep medicine fellowship program was one of the first in the nation to be accredited by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education.
This year, the BWH Division was awarded three post-doctoral fellowship research grants from the AASM, more than any other hospital in the United States has ever received in one year. BWH Division of Sleep Medicine faculty physicians care for their patients in an outpatient clinic and a 6-bed clinical sleep laboratory that are managed by Sleep Health Centers® at their Brighton location, 1505 Commonwealth Avenue. Division faculty have also performed extensive research on sleep and circadian rhythms, successfully competing for NIH research grants and publishing landmark studies in top-tier medical and scientific journals.
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 777-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and its dedication to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. In July of 2008, the hospital opened the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, the most advanced center of its kind. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, involving more than 860 physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by more than $416 M in funding. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information about BWH, please visit www.brighamandwomens.org
