General surgery resident Connie Shao, M.D., was a Claude H. Organ Jr. M.D., Resident Award recipient at this year’s Society of Black Academic Surgeons (SBAS) for her presentation, “Increased risk of post-operative mortality with obesity, age, male sex among COVID-19 surgical patients.”

Shao’s presentation at the 31st Annual SBAS meeting was funded by the UAB Obesity Health Disparities Research Center, led by Dr. Mona Fouad, and supported by the UAB COVID-19 Collaborative Outcomes Research Enterprise (CORE), led by Dr. Michael Mugavero. The principal investigator is Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery Assistant Professor Drew Gunnells, Jr. M.D.

They found that among patients who tested positive for COVID-19 prior to surgery, independent factors associated with post-operative mortality included male sex, undergoing emergent or urgent surgery, increased BMI, and greater age. Mortality improved throughout the course of the pandemic, with some signal that increased time from testing positive for COVID-19 to surgery could help decrease mortality. However, Shao cautioned that complications from delaying the surgery should be weighed against viral convalesce.

Shao looks forward to how this research project will evolve. “I am very grateful for our work to be recognized by SBAS. We are very passionate about this rapidly emerging surgical question – how to best care for a growing surgical population of people who have previously had a COVID-19 infection.”

Additional commentary on this topic is available by Shao on The Academic Surgeon, the official blog of the AAS.