Oversees program that performs thousands of surgeries
The NIH Clinical Center has a new surgeon-in-chief.
Dr. Prashant Chittiboina, a clinical investigator in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke's (NINDS) Neurosurgery Unit for Pituitary and Inheritable Diseases, has been appointed as chief surgeon at the hospital. The surgeon-in-chief plays a vital role in ensuring patient safety and oversees all surgical activities, provides strategic planning for surgical care and works to improve surgical quality and safety protocols throughout the hospital. Chittiboina will share his time between NINDS and the Clinical Center.
"The CC truly lives up to its nickname as ‘America's Research Hospital'. With the foresight and support of the Congress and Clinical Center leaders, we provide the highest quality clinical care for our patients with rare, intractable or complicated conditions. The practitioners at the hospital focus on problems that affect a large number of Americans using clinical, translational and basic science tools. These aspects of the CC make it a special place to practice medicine and to do science," said Chittiboina. expanding on what makes the Clinical Center so special and why the appointment is so meaningful to him.
He will work with Clinical Center staff, including those in the Department of Perioperative Medicine, to ensure NIH continues to provide the highest level of surgical care to patients. As many as 2,200 operations are performed by over 40 senior surgical staff each year at the hospital.
Chittiboina outlined his goals for the new role. "I hope to be an effective conduit of information between the surgical community and hospital leadership. In addition to undertaking projects to improve patient safety, I hope to improve transparency of surgical operations. I also hope to organize surgeon-investigators in special interest groups to accelerate surgical science and the Clinical Center," he said.
Since joining NINDS in 2012 as a translational research fellow, Chittiboina ascended to staff clinician in the Surgical Neurology Branch in 2013, assistant clinical investigator in 2015, and most recently a tenure track investigator in 2020. Chittiboina's laboratory studies neurosurgical disorders of the pituitary gland and inheritable tumor syndromes. His full biography can be found on the Clinical Center's Meet Our Doctor's page.
He takes over the position from the prior surgeon-in-chief, Dr. Jeremy L. Davis.