Bridget Fahy, MD

Surgery, Hospice and Palliative Medicine - Surgery

Biography

Dr. Bridget Fahy is Professor of Surgery and Medicine. She currently serves as the Director of Surgical Palliative Care where her clinical, education, and scholarly activities are focused on increasing the integration of palliative medicine with surgical care.

Her surgical practice is focused on caring for patients with colorectal and gastric malignancies, melanoma, and sarcomas. She also provides in-patient palliative medicine consultation to patients with a wide range of serious illnesses, as well as providing support to their families. As one of less than 100 surgeons with board certification in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, she is able to bring her unique training and expertise to all aspects of her academic practice.

Dr. Fahy is an active medical educator for medical students, residents, and fellows in Surgery and Palliative Medicine. She leads numerous educational sessions for learners in the areas of surgical oncology and palliative medicine throughout the year. She has been an invited speaker in these areas for local, regional, and national surgical and palliative medicine conferences. She is a strong advocate for teaching primary palliative care skills to medical students, surgical residents, and attending surgeons.

Her research activities are similarly focused on the integration of palliative care for surgical patients. She and her colleagues from Johns Hopkins and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute were recently awarded a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Grant: A Multi-centered Randomized Controlled Trial of Perioperative Palliative Care Surrounding Cancer Surgery for Patients and Their Family Members (the PERIOP-PC Trial). As the site principal investigator for this first-of-its kind prospective randomized surgical palliative care trial, she will lead the UNM team of surgeons and palliative medicine providers as patients with hepatobiliary and foregut malignancies are randomized to perioperative palliative care versus standard surgical care.

She is a nationally recognized expert in the field of surgical palliative care through her work with the American College of Surgeons Committee on Surgical Palliative Care and as an examination consultant for the American Board of Surgery-Complex General Surgical Oncology Board. Her efforts have focused on integration of palliative medicine topics into general surgery and surgical oncology training as well as the board certification process.