Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice, Clinician Educator

Overview

Sevdenur Cizginer, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Surgery & Medicine & Health Services, Policy and Practice, serves as Medical Director of Geriatric Surgery at The Miriam Hospital (TMH) - Brown University; leads patient care, teaching, and research activities in Geriatric Surgery. She also serves as Director of Geriatric Surgery Quality Committee at Lifespan; leads implementation of American College of Surgeons Geriatric Surgery Verification Program at Lifespan Hospitals.

Dr. Cizginer in collaboration with surgery team at TMH initiated a novel collaboration, “Surgery OSCAR Program” (Optimization of Senior Care And Recovery) Program, between the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine and the Department of General Surgery in 2014 to improve care for elderly surgery patients through a multidisciplinary patient-centered strategy. This program has been shown to improve patient outcomes significantly, while reducing hospital costs in surgery patients. The program received the Lifespan Health System Certification of Recognition, the Barnet Fain Quality Award, which highlights innovative work at Brown University-affiliated Hospitals. Dr. Cizginer is part of the American College of Surgeons Geriatric Surgery Verification Committee and works with surgeon leaders to disseminate the Geriatric Surgery Verification Program throughout the US hospitals. 

Dr. Cizginer received Providence Business News 40-Under-Forty award for 2015, selected based on career success and community involvement among young professionals. She is a former grantee of John A. Hartford Foundation Center of Excellence in Geriatrics Grant and Donal W. Reynold Foundation Teaching Grant. She was a scholar of the 2018-19 TIDESWELL American Geriatrics Society (AGS) and Association of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs (ADGAP) Emerging Leaders in Aging Program. She was selected to Dean's Advance K Program in 2019. She is the recipient of the 2020 Charles C.J. Carpenter, M.D., Outstanding Physician of the Year Award at TMH-Brown, which is described as "the highest recognition that can be given to a member of medical staff; this award recognizes physicians for outstanding contributions to medicine, leadership, professionalism and patient care.”

Dr. Cizginer is board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine. She completed her Master of Public Health at Brown’s School of Public Health in 2018. She is practicing as a geriatrician at the Brown –affiliated hospitals. She is a clinical researcher with a deep research interest in dissemination and implementation science, integrated care models in care of hospitalized elderly surgery patients, postoperative cognitive disorders and delirium. She completed a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School prior to her residency training.  She received a Brown Medicine Academic Assessment Grant in 2020, Norman and Rosalie Fain Family Foundation Grant 2021, and Advance Clinical Translational Research MRA Grant 2022.  Dr. Cizginer leads a multidisciplinary research team (Medicine, Surgery, Psychiatry and Neurology) at Brown University conducting research studies focusing on pathophysiology of postoperative cognitive disorders in older surgical adults.

Research Areas