UAB General Surgery Resident Wendelyn Oslock, M.D., MBA, has been selected for a Clinical Outcomes/Health Services Research Trainee Fellowship Award by the Association of Academic Surgery Foundation (AASF) and the Association of Academic Surgery (AAS) for her project entitled: "Pollution and its relationship with surgical outcomes and disparities."
Oslock’s research mentors are UAB Division Director of Gastrointestinal Surgery Daniel Chu, M.D., FACS, MSPH, FASCRS, who is actively engaged in studying health disparities in surgery, and Ruzmyn Vilcassim, Ph.D., MS, from the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health whose research focuses on exposure assessment and health effects. They are interested to see if the well documented disparities in pollution exposure partially explain persistent disparities in surgical outcomes.
"We are extremely proud of Dr. Wendelyn Oslock for receiving the AAS/AASF Clinical Outcomes/Health Services Research Trainee Fellowship Award," says Dr. Chu. “She is an exceptional candidate for this award, and I look forward to seeing the significant contributions she will make to the field of surgery while also reducing its environmental impact.”
In addition to her study of the effects of pollution exposure on surgical outcomes, Dr. Oslock has also recently joined the VA Quality Scholars Program with a focus on reducing the environmental impact of operating rooms and serves on the Sustainability in Surgical Practice Task Force for the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES).
About the Clinical Outcomes / Health Services Research Trainee Fellowship Award
The Clinical Outcomes / Health Services Research Trainee Fellowship Award provides an eligible resident or fellow who has completed at least two years of postgraduate training in a surgical discipline the opportunity to spend one year in a full-time research position with an AAS member. This competitive award of $30,000 for one year per award may be used for salary support or for the direct-cost expenditures of the research.