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Alumnus Honors Obstetrics Training with Distinguished Chair

Like many of his colleagues who trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Thomas Kosasa, MD, feels loyalty and gratitude for his experiences.

“Teaching, training, and mentoring are time-intensive and essential building blocks for creating a strong foundation for a career in medicine,” Dr. Kosasa says. “I know because I was trained by some of the best, including Dr. Raymond Reilly, a legend at the Brigham who was a wonderful mentor to me.”

Now a leading fertility doctor in Hawaii, Dr. Kosasa has been a generous benefactor to obstetrics and gynecology at the Brigham. Recently, he committed $2 million to establish the Kosasa Family Distinguished Chair in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

“Distinguished chairs expedite the research and teaching efforts of our most outstanding faculty,” says Robert L. Barbieri, MD, chair of the Brigham’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Biology. “It’s fitting Dr. Kosasa would give a chair because he has always liked to speed things along, even when he was a resident.”


“Teaching, training, and mentoring are time-intensive and essential building blocks for creating a strong foundation for a career in medicine. I know because I was trained by some of the best.” —Thomas Kosasa, MD


An avid pilot, skier, and car enthusiast, Dr. Kosasa frequently flies medical emergency flights among the Hawaiian Islands, speeding patients’ access to care from remote locations. He is also a professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii’s John A. Burns School of Medicine, where he has taught and mentored many students. One example of the kind of training Dr. Kosasa is supporting with his gift to the Brigham is childbirth simulation.

“For the past 15 years, an important element in our training is for teams of obstetricians to work through a difficult scenario in the childbirth simulator,” says Dr. Barbieri. “They learn how to best keep their patients safe.”

As Dr. Barbieri and others at the Brigham work to select the first nominated incumbent of the Kosasa Family Distinguished Chair, he notes it will likely be a senior surgical educator who advances the Brigham’s commitment to gynecology and obstetrics care through all life phases, from pediatric patients to post-menopausal women.

“This chair gives us the flexibility to attract and retain the kind of talent that has kept our department a national leader in clinical care, research, and training for many years,” says Dr. Barbieri. “We are deeply grateful for Dr. Kosasa’s continued loyalty and generosity.”