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The UAB Department of Surgery invites all attendees of this year’s American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress in Boston, Massachusetts, to a cocktail reception and silent auction, beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 22 at the Seaport Hotel, Lighthouse 1.

The following Department of Surgery faculty received promotions earlier this month:

Twitter is a social media channel that allows users to connect according to their shared interests, and the academic surgery community is no different. In our ongoing #FollowFriday series, we’re interviewing our most Twitter-savvy faculty about their online presence and how they use the platform to stay connected.

Dr. Allison Brown

UAB general surgery resident Allison Brown, M.D., recently matched into the Acute Care Surgery Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Brown will join the Division of Trauma, Burn and Surgical Critical Care as a two-year fellow in August 2019.

Department of Surgery faculty and trainees attend the Society of Asian Academic Surgeons Annual Meeting, Sept. 27-28, 2018, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

UAB Department of Surgery faculty and trainees pose for a photo using the Society of Asian Academic Surgeons' Twitter photo prop at the Society's annual meeting, hosted by the Medical College of Wisconsin, Sept. 27-28, 2018, in Milwaukee.

By Marina Moody

Last month, members of the UAB Department of Surgery faculty attended the 2018 Society of Asian Academic Surgeons Annual Meeting, which was hosted this year by the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee at the Pfister Hotel. The organization’s 2017 meeting was held here at UAB and was also well attended, attracting nearly 200 attendees to Birmingham. Since its inaugural conference in 2016, SAAS has worked to help members with their career development and promote Asian advancements in the field of surgery.

The UAB Department of Surgery has instituted a new, streamlined quality council structure. The council is chaired by the Division of Surgical Oncology’s Martin Heslin, M.D., and includes representation from every division within the Department. The council will work with Loring Rue, M.D., UAB Health System’s chief medical officer, and will focus on quality matters important to the Department of Surgery.

Twitter is a social media channel that allows users to connect according to their shared interests, and the academic surgery community is no different. In a new series, we’ll interview our most Twitter-savvy faculty about their online presence and how they use the platform to stay connected.

Local meteorologist James Spann talks about the importance of colon screenings in detecting colon cancer at last week's Colon on the Corner with Coffee event.

By Marina Moody

Last Friday, UAB Employee Wellness hosted Colon on the Corner with Coffee at the corner of 20th Street South and 6th Avenue South near The Kirklin Clinic from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event featured free coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts; a giant, inflatable colon; a meet and greet with local meteorologist James Spann and the opportunity to learn more about colorectal cancer from UAB doctors such as the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery’s Daniel Chu, M.D. With colorectal cancer being Alabama’s second-deadliest cancer, UAB Employee Wellness organized this interactive event to promote timely colon screenings for people over the age of 45.

Register now to join our UAB Digestive Health team, the “UAB Digestive Health Colon Wranglers,” in the third annual Run for Resilience: Ostomy 5K and one-mile fun run on Oct. 6 at George Ward Park in Birmingham. The registration fee is $15 for adults and $10 for children, and the deadline to register is Oct. 3. Prizes will be awarded to the top three overall finishers in each event.

More than 1,200 interns, residents and fellows train in every medical specialty at UAB in Birmingham, at our regional campuses in Montgomery, Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, and in our program in Selma. In an ongoing series, the Department of Surgery will feature incoming and outgoing trainees for all UAB Surgery programs. This week, learn about the Pediatric Surgery Fellowship, Pediatric Surgery Research Fellowship and Pediatric Endoscopic Surgery Fellowship.

The UAB Department of Surgery will now receive all IT support from HSIS effective Monday, September 17, 2018. For any technical support or service requests, faculty and staff should call the Help Desk at 934-8888 or email helpdesk@uabmc.edu.

The Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery’s Daniel Chu, M.D., has received the 2018 Association for Academic Surgery/Taiwan Surgical Association International Visiting Professorship Award. Through this award, Chu will receive funding to attend the TSA Annual Meeting in 2019 and serve as host for the TSA visiting professor attending the Academic Surgical Congress in February 2019.

By Marina Moody

The Division of Pediatric Surgery’s Colin Martin, M.D., has been awarded the 2018 Association for Academic Surgery/Royal Australasian College of Surgeons International Visiting Professorship Award. Through this award, Martin will receive funding to attend the 2019 RACS Annual Scientific Congress in Bangkok, Thailand.

Director of the Division of Surgical Oncology Dr. Helen Krontiras speaks to a patient in the clinic at UAB.

Helen Krontiras, M.D., director of the Division of Surgical Oncology at UAB, has been named one of Alabama Media Group’s 2018 Women Who Shape the State.

More than 1,200 interns, residents and fellows train in every medical specialty at UAB in Birmingham, at our regional campuses in Montgomery, Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, and in our program in Selma. In an ongoing series, the Department of Surgery will feature incoming and outgoing trainees for all UAB Surgery programs. This week, learn about the Abdominal Transplant Fellowship.

The Transplantation Society recently named general surgery resident Greg Martens, M.D., the recipient of the $1,000 Anthony P. Monaco Award for the best translational science paper published in Transplantation.

Residents and faculty are encouraged to reserve the UAB Department of Surgery Resident Resource Center for educational events by emailing generalsurgery@uabmc.edu. The Resident Resource Center features a conference room with a television monitor and a number of desktop computers for faculty to use to teach groups of medical students or residents, in order to provide them with more opportunities to accumulate scholarly activity points.

Shoutout to the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery’s Jamie Cannon, M.D., who was the first to take advantage of these teaching opportunities in the Resident Resource Center with her weekly Wednesday morning educational conferences.

Our UAB Department of Surgery interns and general surgery residents completed their DiSC assessments last Friday morning at their weekly conference with UAB Department of Surgery Chair Herbert Chen, M.D.

U.S. News & World Report’s 2017-2018 Best Hospitals report ranks UAB No. 18 in the nation, jumping 12 spots from last year’s ranking and 19 spots from its 2015-2016 ranking.

Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery Director James Davies, M.D., performs surgery in the OR at UAB Hospital.

“The UAB cardiovascular service line is very proud of our continually improving U.S. News and World report ranking, now at No. 18 nationally,” said Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery Director James Davies. “We are currently the only ranked program in the state of Alabama, and we are in the top 3 programs in the Southeast. Every member of the team should be applauded for his or her efforts in making this program so valuable for the patients of Alabama.”

Cardiology and Heart Surgery is one of 10 specialties at UAB ranked in the top 50 and one of four specialties at UAB ranked in the top 20.

U.S. News calculates a hospital's overall Cardiology & Heart Surgery score based on various data categories, including patient outcomes in areas such as treatment of cardiovascular disease, heart transplants, and other complex heart conditions, volume of high-risk patients, nurse staffing and quality, public transparency, and advanced technology. Four conditions and procedures applicable to UAB Cardiology & Heart Surgery were also ranked high performing in the report: heart failure, heart bypass surgery, aortic valve surgery and abdominal aortic aneurysm repair.

Vice-Chair of Clinical Research for the UAB Department of Surgery Marc Passman, M.D., has instituted an updated process for submitting an IRB protocol in the Department of Surgery for Protocol Oversight Review. This process is for initial submissions only.

Click here for complete process details and forms.

Dr. Herbert Chen

At the July 31 Surgery Grand Rounds, UAB Department Chair Herbert Chen, M.D., hosted the department’s mid-year update, where departmental vice chairs provided updates on their respective areas. Topics included appointment and tenure, mentoring, basic research, clinical research, patient experience, Birmingham VAMC, OR utilization and value-based metrics. Chen concluded the presentation by commending the department on its reputation in the academic surgery community after having been asked to present his talk, “Culture of a Winning Team,” at a number of institutions across the country.

Medical student Elle Kaplan wins first place in her poster group at Medical Student Research Day on Aug. 7.

Congratulations to UAB medical students Elle Kaplan and Skyler Graham for placing first and third, respectively, in the Surgery and Anesthesiology Poster Session at the Dale J. Benos Medical Student Research Day on Aug. 7. Medical student Brian Stahl also placed second in the Cancer Poster Session.

The American Association of Endocrine Surgeons’ Endocrine Surgery Fellowship at UAB will welcome its second-ever fellow in 2019 with Jessica Fazendin, M.D. Fazendin comes to the UAB Department of Surgery from Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she completed Drexel University’s General Surgery Residency Program.

General surgery resident Margaux Mustian, M.D., recently received a 2018 Association for Academic Surgery 2018 Fall Courses Travel Award.

Dr. Daniel Chu
Dr. Herbert Chen

The Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery’s Daniel Chu, M.D., was recently selected to participate in the Association for Academic Surgery’s inaugural Aspiring Leaders Development Program. Chu matched with mentor Adil Haider, M.D., M.P.H., from Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

Meanwhile, UAB Department of Surgery Chair Herbert Chen, M.D., who also serves as a mentor for the program, matched with mentee Lawrence Shirley, M.D., from The Ohio State University.

This 12-month mentorship program is designed to engage high-potential academic surgeons to develop and implement leadership competencies, supported with associated high-quality mentorship, in order to impact personal, team and organizational goals.

General surgery research resident Meixi Ma, M.D., headed to the American College of Surgeons in Chicago, Illinois, last month for a two-year appointment as one of two ACS/John A. Hartford Foundation Geriatrics Surgery Clinical Scholars in Residence. In addition to learning how to implement a quality improvement program on a national scale, Ma will conduct clinical research in surgical education and outcomes, while simultaneously obtaining a master’s degree in health services and outcomes research from Northwestern University’s Institute for Public Health and Medicine.

The University of Michigan Department of Surgery has invited our department to participate in a Junior Faculty Exchange program that was implemented last year. This program aims to encourage collaboration and exposure for junior faculty across major teaching institutions.

All eight general surgery chief residents successfully passed the American Board of Surgery’s General Surgery Qualifying Examination this year. The exam is offered annually as the first of two exams required for board certification in general surgery. The exam consists of about 300 multiple-choice questions designed to evaluate a surgeon's knowledge of general surgical principles and applied science.

Dr. Catherine Parker, winner of the 2018 Brewer-Heslin Endowed Award for Professionalism in Medicine, talks with a patient in clinic.

Catherine Parker, M.D., assistant professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology in the UAB Department of Surgery, has been awarded the 2018 Brewer-Heslin Endowed Award for Professionalism in Medicine.

U.S. News & World Report’s 2017-2018 Best Hospitals report ranks UAB Cardiology and Heart Surgery No. 18 in the nation, jumping 12 spots from last year’s ranking and 19 spots from its 2015-2016 ranking, and lists Gastroenterology/GI Surgery as high-performing.

The magazine also lauds UAB for high performance in heart bypass surgery, abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, aortic valve surgery, colon cancer surgery and lung cancer surgery.