General Surgery Research Resident Peter Abraham, M.D., placed first the statewide competition and Region IV (southeast region) American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma (COT) resident abstract competition in the clinical category.

The ACS COT conducts the competition each year, and residents from across the country are encouraged to submit abstracts for entry. There are state-level, regional-level and national-level competitions. The southeast region competition encompasses eight states in the region.

Abraham’s abstract, “Understanding the Geography of Trauma: Combining Spatial Analysis and Funnel Plots to Create Comprehensive Spatial Injury Profiles” was one of 10 total presentations from Region IV. Each participant gave a 10-minute presentation to the ACS COT panel of judges and then had a five-minute Q&A session.

The goal of Abraham’s research project is to better understand and characterize the distribution of trauma patterns around the state of Alabama utilizing choropleth maps and funnel plots. These tools provide a visual representation of the geographic and statistical spread of trauma incidence.

Ultimately Abraham and collaborating researchers are hoping to use this information to help guide policy decisions, such as funding, resource allocation, and injury prevention initiatives across the state. In the future, Director of the Division of Acute Care Surgery Jeffery Kerby, M.D., Ph.D., will present any subsequent maps or visuals the team creates as part of the project to state legislators to better inform them when they make relevant decisions.

Next, Abraham’s abstract will be scored against the winner of the Basic Science category, and the winner will advance to the national competition in the spring.