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In the News Section of the Cutting Edge, we highlight some of the professional and personal updates on AAST members.
- Dr. Jaime Coleman joined the faculty at the University of Louisville
- Thank you to Dr. David Spain for his leadership during a two-year term as the past President of AAST. (https://online.fliphtml5.com/wamtf/upin/?1633001060958#p=2)
- Congratulations to Dr. David Livingston on becoming the new President of AAST
- Dr. Deborah Stein has re-joined the faculty at the University of Maryland.
- Congratulations to Dr. Grace Rozycki on delivering the AAST Master Surgeon Lecture “The Use of Ultrasound in the Acute Setting: Lessons Learned After 30 years”
- Congratulations to Dr. J. Wayne Meredith on completing his term as the President of the American College of Surgeons. https://www.acsccnews.org/welcome-to-clinical-congress-2/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ACS-2021-Issue1-assoc-twitter-share&utm_content=link-share
- Congratulations to Dr. L.D. Britt on being awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Britt is the Henry Ford Professor and Edward J. Brickhouse Chairman, department of surgery, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, where he also is professor, School of Health Professions; professor, division of the history of medicine; and chair, the council of clinical chairs. He is a Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD.
- Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jason Smith recently earned the University of Louisville's Service Award for his work throughout the community during the #COVID19 pandemic. He's been instrumental in leading vaccination efforts throughout Louisville and the state of Kentucky. https://www.uoflnews.com/post/uofltoday/uofl-names-2021-distinguished-faculty-award-recipients/
- Dr. David Mulder has recently been named an Honorary Degree recipient from the University of Saskatchewan. This is the most prestigious award that can be bestowed upon a member of the USask community and is granted to those who have made a significant contribution to their community.
- Dr. David Livingston was selected as the 2021 Charles W. Putnam Distinguished Member Award recipient. This inaugural award is given to an AWS member or non-member who has a sustained record of mentoring women surgeons and is a true agent of change to create an environment in which women surgeons can achieve their personal and professional goals.
Funding Announcements
- Brown Surgical Associates’ trauma and critical care surgeon Dr. Sean Monaghan will serve as principal investigator in a 5-year research grant looking into potential new treatments for sepsis – the body’s extreme and potentially deadly response to an infection. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, sepsis accounted for 270,000 deaths and $62 billion in medical expenses in the United States alone. Those numbers have only increased in the last 18 months, as many people with severe COVID also end up with sepsis. According to the Global Sepsis Alliance, sepsis is the most frequent complication in COVID-19 treatment and is associated with high mortality of patients with severe SARS-CoV-2.
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AAST member Dr. Stephanie Chao recently receives an NIH KL2 award through the Stanford Clinical and Translational Science Award Program. The KL2 Mentored Career Development Program at Stanford University is a two-year research program funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Stanford Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program. Dr. Chao’s proposal is entitled “Elucidating racial bias in child abuse reporting through standardized universal screening.” Her project aims to develop a novel, universal electronic-medical record (EMR) based screening tool to optimize child abuse detection. She will further seek to determine whether the implementation of the EMR-based screening tool improves screening accuracy and decreases racial disparities in child abuse identification. Dr. Chao is an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Surgeons in the Department of Surgery at Stanford. She serves as the Trauma Medical Director for Stanford Children's Health/Lucille Packard Children's Hospital. Her research focuses on minimizing the traumatic impact of surgery. She has a particular interest in understanding the toll of pediatric firearms injuries and preventing child abuse and its long-term consequences.
- Dr. Lisa M. Knowlton the inaugural chair of the AAST Associate Member Council recently received an R21 grant from the NIH. The award will fund her research project "Reducing Disparities for the Uninsured: Identifying Opportunities for Improved Coverage Through Emergency Medicaid Programs." This project is a continuation of her work funded by the AAST Faculty Research Fellowship. "This represents a great return on investment for the AAST" noted AAST President David Spain, who is also a co-investigator on the project. "She is one of several great examples of how to build your academic career in Acute Care Surgery." Dr. Knowlton is an assistant professor and acute care surgeon and public health researcher at Stanford University. Her research focus is on improving access to and quality of care for trauma and surgical patients. She obtained her medical degree at McGill University and completed her general surgery residency at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her desire to understand varied healthcare systems and develop solutions for vulnerable surgical populations led her to obtain an M.P.H. at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and complete a research fellowship at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Following a Surgical Critical Care fellow at Stanford University Medical Center, she joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in early 2018. Dr. Knowlton's research focuses on addressing barriers in access to care and reducing disparities among vulnerable surgical populations, including underinsured trauma patients. She is also investigating the financial burden that injury imposes upon both patients and hospitals, with the goal of finding economically sustainable strategies for ensuring the best outcomes among trauma patients. These include the study of emergency Medicaid programs at the state and national levels. She was previously awarded the 17th C. James Carrico Faculty Research Fellowship by the American College of Surgeons to better understand the link between socioeconomic status, insurance coverage, and quality of patient outcomes for trauma patients receiving care within U.S hospitals.
- Dr. Zara Cooper received an R01 grant from the NIH. The award will fund her research project "A Layered Examination of the Patient Experience to Elucidate the Role of Palliative Care in Surgical Care for Seriously Ill Older Adults." The proposed study uses complementary data sources to assess patient-centered outcomes in older seriously ill surgical patients, uses novel methods to evaluate the impact of palliative care processes on outcomes, and examines barriers to implementation of perioperative palliative care in clinical practice. These results will directly inform bedside clinical decisions and the implementation of targeted palliative care interventions to improve care for seriously ill older surgical patients. Dr. Cooper is an acute care surgeon, trauma surgeon, and surgical intensivist at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) where she serves as Kessler Director for the Center for Surgery and Public Health (CSPH). Dr. Cooper is an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, associate faculty at Ariadne Labs, and adjunct faculty at the Marcus Institute for Aging research, all in Boston, MA. A graduate of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Dr. Cooper completed her General Surgery Residency and Critical Care Fellowship at BWH; a Trauma Fellowship at Harborview Medical Center and the University of Washington in Seattle; and training in hospice and palliative medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and BWH.
If you have an update on an AAST member that you would like to highlight in the Cutting Edge Newsletter, please send us the info at aast@aast.org