Brett attended medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and then did a rotating internship at the University of South Dakota and a family medicine residency at the University of Kansas. After residency, he worked for a year with the Indian Health Service in Juneau, AK before coming to San Francisco for the fellowship. While a fellow, Brett obtained a masters in public health at the University of California, Berkeley with a concentration in health management and public policy. His research interests included study of the use of pharmacy claims data in the management of diabetes, physician workforce issues in California, and the use of email by physicians in clinical practice. While a fellow, Brett also spent one month in Washington DC with the Robert Graham Center for Health Policy where he studied medical errors in association with the LINNEUS Collaboration.

Since finishing the fellowship, Brett has been working as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer with the CDC. He is currently stationed in Puerto Rico where he frequently applies his policy training in his work with the Puerto Rico Secretary of Health. During his first year there, Brett has studied falling organ donation rates, celebratory gunfire injuries and deaths around New Year’s Eve, and rabies control policy. He has also developed a flu-like illness syndromic surveillance system, evaluated and made recommendations to end a passive antibiotic resistance surveillance system, and has helped with the development of a laboratory based antibiotic resistance surveillance system. In addition, Brett has investigated numerous outbreaks of disease affecting the territory. His teaching responsibilities include occasional lectures at the University of Puerto Rico School of Public Health and assisting in the development of the Field Epidemiology Training Program in the Puerto Rico Department of Health.

• “Outbreak of Hemorrhagic Conjunctivitis Caused by Coxsackievirus A24” MMWR July 23, 2004
• “Injuries and Death from Celebratory Gunfire – Puerto Rico, New Year’s Eve 2003” Submitted for publication MMWR

• “Chest Tube Insertion and Care” Presented at American Academy of Family Practice Meeting, Kansas City, June 1999
• “The Use of Email in Clinical Practice” Presented at the National Association of Primary Care Researchers, New Orleans, September 2002
• “Medical Errors: A Report of the LINNEAUS Collaboration” Presented at the National Association of Primary Care Researchers, Banff, September 2003
• “Heridos de Balas Caídas en Puerto Rico (Injuries from Falling Bullets in Puerto Rico)” Presented at the Second Annual Conference on Trauma Systems, San Juan, April, 2004
• “A Large Hemorrhagic Conjunctivitis Outbreak – Puerto Rico, 2003” Presented at the 53 rd Annual EIS Conference, Atlanta, April 2004
• “Latebreaker: Injuries and Deaths from Falling Bullets – Puerto Rico, New Year’s Eve 2003” Presented at the 53 rd Annual EIS Conference, Atlanta, April 2004
• “ Estudio ‘Cross-Sectional’ de Gastroenteritis en Puerto Rico (Cross-sectional Study of gastroenteritis in Puerto Rico)” presented at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras May 2004