Having dedicated his career to patient care, education and research, Douglas S. Smink, MD, MPH, embodies the classic tripartite mission of an academic medical center. He discusses his experience leading the Association of Program Directors in Surgery as well as his research on innovative gastrointestinal training.

Home hospital programs are a safer, cheaper and more efficacious alternative to inpatient hospital admission for many medical conditions. The Brigham is at the forefront of efforts to extend this delivery model to perioperative care, including for GI and bariatric surgery. Thomas C. Tsai, MD, MPH, discusses this work.

Walter Chan, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Gastrointestinal Motility at the Brigham, Nayna Lodhia, MD, associate physician in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endoscopy, and colleagues have documented anorectal dysfunction in patients with chronic constipation who used opioids.

Giovanni Traverso, MB, BChir, PhD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and MIT, and colleagues found in models that gastric fluid (GF), accessible through an ordinary nasogastric tube, contains many of the biomarkers associated with diseases treated in critical care settings.

Stefan G. Tullius, MD, PhD, of the Brigham, and colleagues, pinpointed taurodeoxycholic acid (TDCA), a bile acid, and L-valine, an essential amino acid, as agents that replicate many benefits of SG. In eLife they say their results may lead to improved pharmacologic treatment of obesity in humans.