By Marina Moody

The Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery’s Melanie Morris, M.D., recently presented her research on the “Association of an Enhanced Recovery Pathway and Acute Kidney Injury in Colorectal Surgery Patients” at the University of Technology Sydney.

Dr. Melanie Morris

Morris and a team of researchers at UAB and the Birmingham VA Medical Center found that the implementation of Enhanced Recovery Protocol is associated with higher levels of acute kidney injury following elective colorectal surgery. They concluded that further studies would define which aspects of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery protocol are possibly associated with the increased risk of acute kidney injury.

This research was one of the highest-scoring abstracts at last year’s Academic Surgical Congress, and was presented by Morris’ mentee, medical student Jameson Weiner.

Morris presented this research as the Section of Academic Surgery guest lecturer for the Royal Australian College of Surgeons Annual Joint Meeting of the Section of Academic Surgery and the Surgical Research Society earlier this month at UTS.