Chair’s Spotlight: Navine Nasser-Ghodsi, MD

By Merin C. MacDonald

Department of Medicine transplant hepatologist Navine Nasser-Ghodsi is excelling in finding new ways to provide state-of-the-art curative options to our patients.  

Navine Nasser-Ghodsi, MD, is an assistant professor of medicine and transplant hepatologist in the Division of Gastroenterology. Her clinical focus is on hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) and cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer). In this month’s Chair’s Spotlight, Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi discusses bringing a transplant protocol to UMMH this past year, and her research interests and goals for providing the best care to her patients.    

As a transplant hepatologist, Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi’s primary goals are for patients with advanced liver disease to receive a transplant or to find a curative option for their malignancy. Exciting new advances are being made in liver transplantation for malignancy, and this past year for the first time at UMass Memorial Medical Center, a multidisciplinary team including transplant, medical oncology, and radiation oncology successfully transplanted a patient with perihilar cholangiocarcinoma!  

Beyond her primary clinical work, Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi is interested in understanding how we can use the principles of palliative medicine to better care for our patients, specifically, patients who are removed from the transplant waitlist. “Patients can be removed for various reasons, and their short-term mortality is high,” said Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi. “Those individuals often have a significant symptom burden and frequent hospitalizations, and we need to explore how to best guide patients and their caregivers through what is typically an end-of-life situation.”  Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi has been actively exploring these questions with members of Palliative Care including Jennifer Reidy, MD, MS, chief of the Division of Palliative Care and associate professor of family medicine & community health. Together, they are exploring end-of-life care for patients removed from the liver transplant waitlist, characterizing symptom burden, and understanding who would benefit from an early palliative medicine consultation.   

Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi is also currently collaborating with Neil Marya, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, and others, on projects that use artificial intelligence (AI) for classifying indeterminate biliary strictures as benign or malignant in order to provide an early and accurate diagnosis of cholangiocarcinoma. “I did not anticipate becoming involved in AI when I joined the faculty, but the innovative research has significant implications for my patients and has allowed me to care for them in a different way,” said Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi. “These collaborative and novel research efforts place UMass Chan at the forefront of cholangiocarcinoma diagnosis.” 

Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi earned her medical degree as part of the Clinical-Translational Research Pathway at UMass Chan Medical School. She completed her internal medicine residency and fellowships in gastroenterology and transplant hepatology at the Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. After spending seven years away at the Mayo Clinic for her graduate education, Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi was thrilled to return to UMass Chan/UMMH as faculty in 2022.   

“I had a phenomenal experience as a medical student and a mentor, Dr. Isabel Zacharias, who inspired my career decision to become a transplant hepatologist,” said Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi. “I wanted to return to UMass because of the collaborative culture, mentorship, and growing transplant program.” 

We are delighted that Dr. Nasser-Ghodsi returned to UMass Chan/UMMH and grateful for her contributions to the Department of Medicine and her dedicated care of our patients.