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Dr. Jayme LockeThe Division of Transplantation’s Jayme Locke, M.D., recently received an R01 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health for her research, “CKD Risk Prediction among Obese Living Kidney Donors.” The roughly $3.3 million award will be distributed over the course of five years.

Fourth-year medical student Kathryn Hudak presents her research at the 2017 Dale J. Benos Medical Student Research Day on Nov. 13.

Four medical students from the labs of four Department of Surgery faculty placed at this year’s UAB SOM Dale J. Benos Medical Student Research Day on Nov. 13.

Faculty interested in being considered for the 2018 promotion and tenure cycle should approach their division director immediately because the deadline for submission to the Department of Surgery is Monday, December 4.

Dr. Brenessa LindemanThe Division of Surgical Oncology’s Brenessa Lindeman, M.D., MEHP, has been named to the Association of American Medical Colleges Academic Medicine Editorial Board for a three-year term, beginning January 2018.

Dr. James KirklinThe Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery’s James Kirklin, M.D., will be representing the UAB Department of Surgery and KIRSO at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, for the 50th anniversary of the first human heart transplant. Kirklin will serve as the Ambassador of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery at this event held at the University of Cape Town, where Professor Christiaan Barnard performed the world's first human heart transplant in 1967. Learn more about that historic moment here.

Dr. Timothy KingThe Division of Plastic Surgery’s Timothy King, M.D., Ph.D., has been elected to the UAB School of Medicine Faculty Council Committee. The Faculty Council Committee is considered the principal advisory committee to the dean of the School of Medicine and is responsible for providing written review and assessment of appointments, promotion, and tenure award for all clinical and basic science faculty.

Dr. Margaux MustianCheck out this webinar from The Transplantation Society’s online publication, The Tribune Pulse, starring general surgery resident Margaux Mustian, M.D.

The UAB Department of Surgery has recently been announced as a participant in the SIREN network. SIREN, short for Strategies to Innovate EmeRgENcy Care Clinical Trials Network, seeks to enable the conduct of high-quality, multi-site clinical trials to improve outcomes for patients who experience neurologic, cardiac, respiratory, hematologic and trauma emergency events.

In 2017, nearly 20 medical students participated in mentored research projects in the Department of Surgery. Now is the time of year that we start to promote our summer opportunities to students.

Congratulations to the following UAB Surgery faculty who were named to endowed chairs at this week's Endowed Chairs and Professorships Reception:

Dr. Colin MartinThe Division of Pediatric Surgery’s Elizabeth Beierle, M.D., and Colin Martin, M.D., recently received financial awards from the Cannonball Kids’ cancer Foundation and the American Surgical Association Foundation, respectively.

Dr. Devin EckhoffDevin Eckhoff, M.D., the Arnold G. Diethelm Endowed Chair in Transplantation Surgery, has been named interim chair of the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute, effective Oct. 30, 2017. Dr. Eckhoff has been part of the UAB faculty since 1994 when he joined the Division of Transplantation in the Department of Surgery. He’s been director of the Division of Transplantation since 2003 and co-director of the Comprehensive Transplant Institute since 2011 and medical director of transplantation since 2013. He will succeed Dr. Robert Gaston who retired earlier this year. I anticipate Dr. Eckhoff will be in this interim position for at least 12 months while UAB Medicine leaders conduct a national search for a permanent CTI director. 

Faculty, residents and fellows from seven different divisions represent the UAB Department of Surgery at the 2017 American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress in San Diego, California, on Oct. 23.At least 36 faculty and at least 7 residents and fellows represented the UAB Department of Surgery at the 2017 American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress in San Diego, California, this year. The five-day conference, which began last weekend and ended yesterday, saw several wins for the department including a new endocrine surgery fellowship and resident awards.

UAB Department of Surgery Office Associate Tricia Daniel's Pink Party mammogram caught her breast cancer early.

Graphic courtesy of UAB MedicineWhen her coworker urged her to be sure to get her mammogram done back in October 2014, Office Associate Tricia Daniel agreed, if only to stop her coworker’s nagging. Afraid to take time off work from her new full-time position at UAB, Daniel found the UAB Medicine Pink Party to be the most convenient way to take care of the procedure.

Within 72 hours of her mammogram at the Pink Party, Daniel was having a stereotactic biopsy, and by Thanksgiving, she was having surgery to remove the cancerous tissue from her breast.

“For me, I feel like there was just like this thin thread that brought me to UAB as a temp,” Daniel said. “Then I was fortunate enough to get the chance at a full-time position here with my coworker, Dana Scott, who gave me the nudge I needed to go get a mammogram.”

Finding breast cancer early is one of the most important strategies to prevent death from the disease. Here at UAB, our hospital is considered one of America’s Best Breast Centers in the United States and recently received a 2017 Women’s Choice Award.

“I’m just really thankful that UAB was offering the Pink Party then so I could go get my mammogram after work. If all those things hadn’t lined up, how long would it have been and how much worse would it have gotten before I finally received my diagnosis?”

Congratulations to those involved with the Surgery clerkship, which recently received high ratings from graduating medical students in the AAMC graduation questionnaire, as did all UAB School of Medicine clerkship programs. Each year, graduating students are invited to complete a medical school graduation questionnaire regarding their medical school experience.  According to the 2017 questionnaire, 70.8 percent of last year’s graduating class rated UAB School of Medicine surgery clerkships as excellent, compared to only 47.7 percent of students nationally. Ratings have also significantly improved since 2013.

Are you ready for this weekend’s American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress in San Diego, California? We’d like to offer our well wishes to the Department of Surgery faculty, fellows and residents who are presenting at ACS this year and invite you to attend our UAB Surgery events below.

Shoutout to the following faculty, fellows and residents who are representing our department at ACS:

Division of Plastic Surgery

Timothy King, M.D., Ph.D.

Division of Transplantation

• Stephen Gray, M.D.
• Joseph Tector, M.D., Ph.D.

Division of Pediatric Surgery

• Mike Chen, M.D.
• Elizabeth Beierle, M.D.
• Scott Anderson, M.D.
• Colin Martin, M.D.
• Robert Russell, M.D.

Division of Acute Care Surgery

• Jeffrey Kerby, M.D., Ph.D.
• Patrick Bosarge, M.D.
• Duraid Younan, M.D.

Division of Surgical Oncology

• Catherine Parker, M.D.
• Martin Heslin, M.D.
• Sushanth Reddy, M.D.
• Brenessa Lindeman, M.D.
• Carlo Contreras, M.D.
• Kirby Bland, M.D.
• Herbert Chen, M.D.

Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery

• Courtney Balentine, M.D., MPH
• James Bibb, Ph.D.
• Jamie Cannon, M.D.
• John D. Christein, M.D.
• Daniel Chu, M.D.
• Richard Hanney, M.D.
• Greg Kennedy, M.D., Ph.D.
• Jayleen Grams, M.D.
• Reema Mallick, M.D.
• James Mobley, Ph.D.
• Melanie Morris, M.D.
• Manabu Nukaya, Ph.D.
• Abhisek Parmar, M.D.
• John Porterfield, M.D.
• Joshua Richman, M.D., Ph.D.
• Selwyn Vickers, M.D.
• Chetan Patel, M.D.

Division of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy

• Adam Beck, M.D.
• Marc Passman, M.D.

Shoutout to the following UAB Surgery residents who are also presenting:

• Luke Stewart, M.D.
• John Axley, M.D.
• Laura Stafman, M.D.
• Margaux Mustian, M.D.
• Evan Garner, M.D.
• Laura Allen Hickman, M.D.

Cocktail Reception at ACS Clinical Congress 2017

Monday, Oct. 23
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel
1 Market Place
San Diego, CA 92101
Seaport Ballroom G

Faculty, residents and alumni are welcome to bring a guest.

Dinner at ACS Clinical Congress 2017

Monday, Oct. 23
7:30 p.m.
Top of the Market
750 North Harbor Drive
San Diego, CA 92101

To RSVP, email Jamie Moody at jmmoody@uabmc.edu.

Dr. Britney CoreyThe Division of Acute Care Surgery’s Kimberly Hendershot, M.D., and the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery’s Britney Corey, M.D., were recently elected to the Association for Academic Surgery’s Education Committee.

Dr. Kimberly Hendershot

Dr. Colin MartinThe Division of Pediatric Surgery’s Colin Martin, M.D., was recently accepted into the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons’ Promising Leaders Program, in partnership with the Society of University Surgeons and the Society of Black Academic Surgeons. Martin is also invited to attend the SAGES meeting in Seattle, April 11-14, and will be honored during the Foundation Awards Lunch at that time.

This fall, the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery welcomes a new Section of Thoracic Surgery chief, James M. Donahue, M.D. Donahue comes to UAB from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he had an active clinical practice focused on thoracic surgical oncology and served as chief of thoracic surgery at the Baltimore VA Medical Center.

Congratulations to the following faculty members, as well as the divisions of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Cardiothoracic Surgery and Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy, for being named to the following endowed chairs:

To get ready for next weekend’s American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress in San Diego, California, we’re working on a UAB Surgery guide to ACS, but we need your help! If you’re presenting at ACS 2017, email surgcomm@uabmc.edu with the location, date, time and title of your talk so we can include it on our must-see UAB itinerary in next week’s newsletter and let us know what other events you’d like featured in the guide.

The Society of Asian Academic Surgeons Executive Council pose for a photo at the organization's second annual meeting, hosted by the UAB Department of Surgery at Children's Hospital.

By Bob Shepard

The University of Alabama at Birmingham hosted the second annual Society of Asian Academic Surgeons national meeting Sept. 21-22. Almost 200 surgeons attended the event from around the country, including 15 chairs of departments of surgery.

Rhiannon Reed, Dr.P.H., an epidemiologist in the lab of the Division of Transplantation’s Jayme Locke, M.D., was recently awarded an intramural grant from the Gulf States Health Policy Center for her project, “Population Health and Regional Disparities in Organ Access and Utilization.”

The Division of Pediatric Surgery’s Elizabeth Beierle, M.D., has been named vice chair for faculty development for the Department of Surgery. Beierle will take over as chair of the appointment, tenure and promotion process, as well as help the Division of Surgical Oncology’s Marshall M. Urist, M.D., lead the department’s faculty mentorship program.

Helen Krontiras, M.D.Dr. Helen Krontiras, director of the Division of Surgical Oncology, and Kimberly Hendershot, M.D., from the Division of Acute Care Surgery were recently accepted into the 2017-18 UAB Healthcare Leadership Academy training program.

Dr. Margaux Mustian, left, and Dr. Laura Hickman, right, say they pursued a career in transplant surgery in part due to the teaching and training they received from longtime UAB transplant surgeon Dr. Mark Deierhoi, center.

Dr. Sushanth ReddyGeneral surgery residents honored three faculty with awards at this year’s General Surgery Resident Graduation Chief Dinner, including Non-surgical Faculty Teacher of the Year Benjamin Tuck, M.D., assistant professor of cardiothoracic anesthesia; Marshall M. Urist Junior Faculty Teacher of the Year Sushanth Reddy, M.D., assistant professor of surgical oncology; and Kirby I. Bland Surgical Faculty Teacher of the Year Mark Deierhoi, M.D., director of UAB’s Renal Transplant Program and professor in the Division of Transplantation.

UAB Medicine has tapped Department of Surgery Chair Herbert Chen, M.D.; Cheri Canon, M.D., FACR; and C. Seth Landefeld, M.D., as physician leaders to join the newly formed Joint Operating Leadership Committee.

Dr. Courtney BalentineThe Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery’s Courtney Balentine, M.D., has received a GEMSSTAR R03 research grant totaling $111,375 from the NIH for his “Pilot Study of Dissemination and Implementation of a Virtual Acute Care for the Elderly Program on a Gastrointestinal Surgery Unit.”

The UAB Department of Surgery receives most IT support from HSIS. For any technical support or service requests, faculty, trainees and staff can contact the Help Desk at 205-934-8888 or email the Help Desk at helpdesk@uabmc.edu.

The Division of Pediatric Surgery, those regularly working at Children's of Alabama, and some research units use DOM IT for technical support. For help from the DOM IT team, please email domhelp@uab.edu or call 205-975-3616. 

The UAB Department of Surgery Chair's Office takes a break to check out Monday's solar eclipse.