George Johnson, Jr. Distinguished Visiting Professor: Alik Farber, MD, “The Current State of Chronic Limb-Threatening Ischemia”

Dr. Farber is a graduate of Brown University and obtained his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He completed a residency in general surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital; a vascular surgery fellowship at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center; and an endovascular surgery fellowship at the Southern Illinois School of Medicine. In addition to his role as Division Chief of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Dr. Farber is also Medical Director of BMC’s Catheterization and Angiography Laboratories and Co-Director of BMC’s Vascular Non-invasive Laboratory as well as Associate Chair for Clinical Operations in the Department of Surgery. He is a fellow in the American College of Surgeons and is a member of the American Board of Surgery. He is a member of many national and regional medical and surgical societies, including the Society for Vascular Surgery, where he was elected to distinguished fellow status in 2013, the Society of University Surgeons, the Western Vascular Surgery Society, the New England Society for Vascular Surgery, the International Society for Endovascular Surgery, and the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery.

Dr. Farber has served as a principal investigator in a number of clinical trials and is currently a National Co-Chair of the BEST-CLI Trial (Best Endovascular versus Best Surgical Therapy in Patients with Critical Limb Ischemia), a $25 million grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to conduct a four-year, randomized clinical trial comparing traditional bypass surgery with the less invasive alternative of endovascular treatment for patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI). He has written and published many articles about vascular and endovascular surgery, has served as a moderator for various vascular meetings, and developed a formal education program in vascular surgery while at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA, which resulted in the Golden Apple Teaching Award for teaching and mentoring residents.

Since his arrival at BMC, Dr. Farber has made it his goal and mission to foster continued clinical excellence and academic productivity. He is currently the director of a fourth-year medical school elective (BMC Surgery Bootcamp) which is designed to prepare medical students who are going into surgical internship.