Dr. Michael Pritchett is an advanced bronchoscopist who is board certified in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida. He then attended medical school at Nova Southeastern University where he simultaneously received his medical degree and a master’s degree in public health. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, FL and then his fellowship in Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA.
Since completing fellowship, he has been in private practice with the Pinehurst Medical Clinic in Pinehurst, NC for over 16 years. He holds privileges at FirstHealth of the Carolinas, a 4-hospital system in central North Carolina. He serves as the Director of Thoracic Oncology and also the Director of the Chest Center of the Carolinas, a multidisciplinary thoracic oncology clinic. He has previously served as the Medical Director of Critical Care at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital (40-ICU beds) and now serves as the Chair of the Pulmonary Department at FirstHealth. He is active in multiple clinical trials as principal investigator in areas of advanced bronchoscopy, thoracic oncology, molecular pathology, COPD, asthma and pulmonary arterial hypertension. He has been an author/co-author on multiple studies in these areas. He is also one of the founding members and past president of the Society for Advanced Bronchoscopy. He has also served on the board of regents for the World Association for Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology.
Dr. Pritchett has published extensively on various navigation bronchoscopy platforms to assist with biopsy of peripheral nodules. Additionally, he pioneered the use of intraoperative cone-beam CT (CBCT) for use during biopsy of peripheral lung nodules, beginning in 2013. This technique has been shown to significantly increase the diagnostic yield of guided bronchoscopy and is now widely used throughout the world. This work with CBCT has led directly to being able to perform first-in-human trials with an FDA-approved device for bronchoscopic microwave ablation of peripheral lung tumors in 2018. Also, through his work with CBCT he identified the impact of atelectasis on guided bronchoscopy procedures and created an anesthesia protocol which has been published and is widely used today. He has also recently been the first in the U.S. to use the Intuitive Ion endoluminal robotic platform to perform bronchoscopy for peripheral lung lesions. Most recently he has become the first to enroll a patient in the AFFINITY trial using pulsed electric field treatment, in combination with CBCT and robotic bronchoscopy to treat metastatic lesions to the lung.