Departmental News

INTRODUCING DR. COLLIN E.M. BRATHWAITE: Our New Chief of Trauma/Surgical Critical Care

We are very pleased to introduce Collin E.M. Brathwaite, MD, who joined our faculty in August 1998 as chief of the Division of Trauma/Surgical Critical Care. He comes to Stony Brook from Allegheny University of the Health Sciences (formerly the Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University) in Philadelphia, PA, through which he served as chief of trauma and co-director of the intensive care unit of Crozer-Chester Medical Center.

As the new director of our Regional (Level I) Trauma Center, Dr. Brathwaite will coordinate the continued growth and development of our program. University Hospital earned its designation as a Level I Trauma Center in 1993, and has since assumed a vital leadership role in the optimization of care given injured patients on Long Island.


Dr. Brathwaite was recently recognized by Philadelphia Magazine (1996) as one of the "Top Docs" in trauma surgery based on the preferences of physicians, and honored by the Pennsylvania Division of the American Trauma Society which bestowed on him its 1997 Recognition Award for Trauma Prevention.

Dr. Brathwaite is committed to the multidisciplinary team approach to trauma management. At the top of his agenda at present is the implementation of standardized protocols and guidelines for our trauma program.

As chief of our surgical critical care program, Dr. Brathwaite will focus on maximizing the capacity and efficiency of our highly specialized surgical intensive care unit (SICU), which provides advanced tertiary medical care to critically ill adult patients.

Our SICU offers ventilatory management using all modalities of respiratory support, including positive end-respiratory pressure, high-frequency ventilation, intermittent mandatory ventilation, pressure supported ventilation, and pressure controlled ventilation. It also offers cardiac monitoring and management, including vasoactive drips, invasive monitoring, and continuous oximetry.

Dr. Brathwaite's SICU team manages the critical care of pre- and post-operative patients from all of the hospital's surgical services, except for the cardiovascular and pediatric services which have their own ICU's. Our critical care specialists are also available to provide consultation for all types of surgical patients, including general surgery, trauma, orthopedics, neurosurgery, vascular, and transplantation.


As a practicing general surgeon, Dr. Brathwaite's clinical interests include all aspects of general surgery, and he will be active on our breast care and general/gastrointestinal services, using both conventional and minimally invasive approaches for the surgical treatment of abdominal disease.

Dr. Brathwaite plans to establish a multidisciplinary obesity surgery program for the treatment of morbid obesity—that state where body weight exceeds ideal body weight by 100 pounds or more, increasing the risk of early mortality and other serious complications.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

Dr. Brathwaite received his MD from Howard University in 1983, and completed his residency training in general surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center in New York in 1988. He went on to complete a one-year fellowship in traumatology/critical care at the prestigious Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems of the University of Maryland in Baltimore.

He then joined the faculty of UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School as an assistant professor of surgery. There, he co-directed the trauma ICU, and rose to the rank of associate professor in 1995, having distinguished himself as a physician, researcher, and educator.

The following year, Dr. Brathwaite joined the faculty of Allegheny University of the Health Sciences, and assumed leadership of the trauma program at Crozer, which houses that region's largest Burn Center.

Dr. Brathwaite's research interests include post-traumatic sepsis and nutritional support. He has published more than 33 peer-reviewed journal articles, 28 abstracts, and two book chapters.

Board-certified in surgery and in surgical critical care, Dr. Brathwaite is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS) and a Fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine (FCCM).

For consultations/appointments with Dr. Brathwaite, please call 631-444-4550 for breast care and 631-444-4545 for general/gastrointestinal/obesity surgery.

For consultations concerning surgical critical care, physicians should call 631-444-1045.

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