BOSTON - Erik E. Folch, MD, MSc, has joined the Division of Thoracic Surgery in the Roberta and Stephen R. Weiner Department of Surgery and the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Folch comes to BIDMC from Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, where he was Director of Respiratory Therapy and Interventional Pulmonology and Chair of the Performance Improvement Committee.

After receiving his medical training at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México School of Medicine in Mexico City, Folch came to Emory University in Atlanta where he completed his internship and residency and also earned a Master's of Science in Clinical Research. He completed a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland.

Folch's clinical expertise includes minimally invasive chest procedures for patients with benign and malignant lung disease, diagnosis of early lung cancer, staging of lung cancer and palliative treatment of advanced lung cancer.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and consistently ranks among the top four in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC is clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and is a research partner of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit www.bidmc.org.