Dr. Jirapinyo is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is an internationally recognized thought leader in the medical and endoscopic treatment of obesity and fatty liver disease. She pioneered combination therapy using minimally-invasive endoscopic procedures in conjunction with medications to optimize weight loss and improve outcomes for fatty liver disease. Dr. Jirapinyo is one of the few physicians who have completed formal fellowship training in bariatric endoscopy, obesity medicine, and interventional endoscopy. In 2017, she was board-certified in obesity medicine by American Board of Obesity Medicine and became one of the first gastroenterologists in the country to be triple-boarded. She currently serves as the Director of Bariatric Endoscopy Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.

Clinical Expertise

Dr. Jirapinyo is one of the leaders in the field of bariatric endoscopy. Having co-directed several national and international bariatric endoscopy courses, she “trains the trainers” to perform cutting edge endoscopic weight loss procedures. Additionally, she co-invented and holds a U.S. patent for an endoscopic suturing simulator, which is now used worldwide to train bariatric endoscopists in performing endoscopic weight loss procedures. To date, she has performed over a thousand endoscopic weight loss procedures and is among the few doctors in the U.S. with expertise in all available devices. Additionally, she is the go-to physician for weight loss and fatty liver medications with access to the latest trials. She was recently voted Top Doctors by Boston Magazine.

Research, Lectures and Training 

Dr. Jirapinyo is highly regarded as a leading researcher in the field of bariatric endoscopy, having authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications with an H-index of 30 (on google scholar). She has served as the Principal Investigator for a study assessing the impact of endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) on fatty liver, as well as various combination therapy studies, which have led to changes in clinical practice nationwide. She routinely lectures on weight management at national and international medical and surgical conferences and has performed several live case demonstrations for ESG and transoral outlet reduction (TORe). Dr. Jirapinyo had the honor of receiving the Early Career Award from the American Foregut Society (AFS) and the Research Grant from the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), the largest endoscopy society in North America. She is the lead author of the first multi-society international guideline on bariatric endoscopy.

Leadership

Dr. Jirapinyo currently chairs the endobariatrics committee for the Foundation of Interventional & Therapeutic Endoscopy (FITE). She formerly served on the Advisory Board for the Association for Bariatric Endoscopy (ABE) and is currently on the bariatric endoscopy committee for the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders (IFSO), endoscopic surgery committee for AFS, advanced endoscopy committee for ASGE, and educational affairs and research committees for American College of Gastroenterology (ACG).

Education

Dr. Jirapinyo received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed her Internal Medicine Residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Subsequently, she completed her General Gastroenterology, Bariatric Endoscopy and Advanced Endoscopy fellowships at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital. During that time, she also completed the Master of Public Health degree at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and became certified in Obesity Medicine.