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Dr. Elizabeth R. Brown
Boston University
Brown attained her BS degree in Chemistry at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in NYC and then her MD degree at the University of Maryland in 1972. After her residency training in Pediatrics at McGill University in Montreal (Montreal Children's Hospital), she completed her Fellowship Training in Neonatal Perinatal Medicine at Harvard Medical School's Joint Program in Neonatology (Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Beth Israel Hospital). Following fellowship training in 1978, she remained on staff in the Joint Program in Neonatology as a clinical physician in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit and continued to pursue her long term research interest in fetal and newborn lung development.
While at Children's Hospital she helped develop the Neonatal Follow Up Program, for which she was the Director, to study the long term results of the increasing survival of very low birth weight infants due to advances in the understanding of lung disorders in preterm infants. In 1985, she became the Director of Neonatology at Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center) and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. Boston City Hospital was the hospital of last resort for the poor of Boston. No one was ever refused treatment regardless of ability to pay. There she confronted the realities of unequal care and became involved in many public health programs. Through her epidemiological research on her arrival at Boston City Hospital she realized that 20% of the babies born at BCH in the late 80's were born with illicit drugs in their system. Most blamed their mothers, but Dr. Brown demonstrated that there were only 77 inpatient drug treatment beds in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that accepted pregnant women so it was very hard to access treatment for them. She then applied to NIH for funds to study this problem and was awarded a grant to demonstrate the usefulness of a day treatment program for drug addiction in pregnancy.
In 1988, Dr. Brown was awarded a Kellogg National Fellowship Program award. That work focused on Public Health around the world. The mantra of the fellowship program was to think globally and act locally. This led to involvement with the City of Boston Department of Public Health of which Dr. Brown was Medical Director from 1991-96. She spent the next decade advocating for treatment for women who have difficulties with addiction. She served on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Health and Recovery, an advocacy group working with the state and city health department to increase access for care for pregnant women with problems of addiction.
From 1985 to 2008 she continued to direct the Neonatology division of the Department of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. She has been responsible for teaching medical students, interns, residents and fellows at Boston University School of Medicine. She served on many faculty committees including the Boston University IRB (Institutional Review Board) which was tasked with the review of all clinical research at the Medical School and affiliated Hospitals. She retired in 2008. She is a member of the Science Advisory Committee for her alma mater, the College of Mount Saint Vincent in NYC. She had renewed her involvement with fellows who participated in the Kellogg National Fellow Program. Together the Fellows formed the non-profit Kellogg Fellowship Leadership Alliance. This group provides professional expertise to NGO's in underdeveloped countries to help support their work. Dr. Brown was asked to be a member of the Board of Directors and will take on that responsibility in January of 2014.