ABC News Shines Prime-Time Spotlight on Boston Hospitals

Boston, MA, June 11, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), along with Mass General and Children's Hospital, is featured in a new eight-part primetime medical documentary series on ABC called "Boston Med," airing Thursday nights at 10 p.m. beginning June 24. Over the span of four months in 2009, all three institutions opened their doors and allowed ABC cameras to capture more than 2,500 hours of unscripted footage through unprecedented access to the life inside these nationally-renowned institutions.

BWH President Dr. Betsy Nabel reflected on the series and BWH's participation saying, "We embraced this opportunity to show and share with the public the role of an academic healthcare center. The series will highlight the talented and passionate care providers here at BWH and highlight compelling stories about how they strive everyday to ensure the highest quality care is provided to our patients in the most caring and compassionate way."

Among the scenes from BWH that viewers will see is a complicated double lung transplant as well as the inspiring story of the nation's second face transplant. ABC's cameras will go into the operating room to capture the images of this milestone surgery and viewers will meet the donor and his wife, the recipient and the doctor who led the extensive medical team that performed the life transforming procedure.

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. In July of 2008, the hospital opened the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, the most advanced center of its kind. 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. 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 http://www.brighamandwomens.org/.

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