Stephanie Jones, MD

About Dr. Stephanie Jones

Dr. Stephanie Jones is an Associate Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School, attending anesthesiologist and Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at BIDMC. Her clinical area of interest has been the perioperative care of the severely obese patient. She has served as a member of the statewide Weight Loss Surgery Expert Panel and Anesthesia Task Force at the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety. Her work to develop Best Practice Guidelines, published by the Anesthesia Task Force and the Panel as a whole, set the stage for national and international surgical and hospital bariatric accreditation, and decreased mortality among bariatric patients. As President of the International Society for the Perioperative Care of the Obese Patient (ISPCOP), she effectively extended the society’s reach to surgeons and other perioperative care providers. ISPCOP is now an established presence at Obesity Week, a multidisciplinary obesity meeting, and the International Anesthesia Research Society annual meeting. Dr. Jones also co-edited the Essentials of Bariatric Surgery, interdisciplinary online CME education on bariatric surgery and obesity.

Additional collaborative projects include development of the Fundamental Use of Surgical Energy (FUSE) curriculum, where Dr. Jones was one of two anesthesiologists invited to contribute content on the interactions of surgical energy-based tools and patient-implanted electronic devices. Their efforts have resulted in a book, web-based curriculum and validated exam that will likely be required for surgical board certification in the near future. She is also working with a group of engineers and human factors experts under an NIH R01 grant, and helping develop VAST, a Virtual Airway Skills Trainer. This virtual intubation model will eventually allow for training of novices on normal airways and more expert providers on a variety of difficult airways (obese, irradiated, anatomically abnormal) in a way that cannot currently be replicated in mannequin intubation models.

As the former Residency Program Director and current Vice Chair of Education, improving the feedback given to trainees has been an ongoing goal of Dr. Jones. She instituted an online feedback system at BIDMC, initially weekly, now daily, and most recently available for residents to provide feedback to faculty on teaching skills. Dr. Jones was a mentor for a completed FAER grant (PI: John Mitchell, MD) exploring whether faculty development will improve the quality and quantity of feedback provided to residents.

Selected Publications

Mitchell JD, Ku C, Wong V, Fisher LJ, Muret-Wagstaff SL, Ott Q, Shahul S, Bose R, Tibbles C, Jones SB. The impact of a resident communication skills curriculum on patients’ experiences of care. AA Case Rep 2016;6:65-75.

Robinson TN, Olasky J, Young P, Feldman LS, Fuchshuber PR, Jones SB, et al. Fundamental Use of Surgical Energy (FUSE) certification: validation and predictors of success. Surg Endosc 2016;30:916-24.

Mitchell JD, Ku C, Diachun CB, DiLorenzo A, Lee DE, Karan S, Wong V, Schell RM, Brzezinski M, Jones SB. Enhancing Feedback on Professionalism and Communication Skills in Anesthesia Residency Programs Anesth Analg 2017; 125:620-631. doi: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000002143.

Mitchell JD, Amir R, Montealegre-Gallegos M, Mahmood F, Shnider M, Mashari A, Yeh L, Bose R, Wong V, Hess P, Amador Y, Jeganathan J, Jones SB, Matyal R. Summative Objective Structured Clinical Examination Assessment at the End of Anesthesia Residency for Perioperative Ultrasound. Anesth Analg 2018;126:2065-2068.doi: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000002826.

Telem DA, Jones DB, Schauer PR, Brethauer SA, Rosenthal RJ, Provost D, Jones SB. Updated panel report: best practices for the surgical treatment of obesity. Surg Endosc. 2018 Oct;32(10):4158-4164. doi: 10.1007/s00464-018-6160-x. Epub 2018 Mar 30. PMID:29602992.