A.S.P.E.N. is honored to welcome Douglas W. Wilmore, MD, FASPEN for the 2015 Clinical Nutrition Week Keynote address. A pioneer of parenteral nutrition, Dr. Wilmore’s exciting lecture will delve into the problems related to patients with short bowel syndrome and his challenge to practitioners and researchers on how to advance the field in the future.

After receiving his medical degree, Dr. Wilmore worked at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where he received his training in general surgery. While at Penn, he worked with the team of investigators who developed total parenteral nutrition. Dr. Wilmore served in the U.S. Army working at the Institute for Surgical Research in San Antonio, Texas from 1971-1979. There he described many of the metabolic derangements associated with major injury and provided methods for resolving the severe catabolic responses that occur following trauma.

In 1979, Dr. Wilmore moved to the Harvard Medical School and served as the Frank Sawyer Professor of Surgery and senior staff surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. During this time, his laboratory developed modern techniques to measure the amino acid glutamine, described the response of this amino acid in acute illness and evaluated the effects of administering glutamine to seriously ill individuals. This group was the first to demonstrate that glutamine was associated with reduced infection rates in critically ill patients, that glutamine administration improved gut absorption and that this amino acid could restore muscle mass following wasting diseases. The use of glutamine to enhance gut absorption is now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in the United States.

Objectives:

Summarize the progress made in the field of intestinal insufficiency
Describe the anatomy of the intestine and the role of enteral feeding
Discuss approaches towards improving outcomes of patients with intestinal insufficiency

Douglas W. Wilmore MD, FASPEN

Professor Emeritus, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Kilauea, HI

Appearances