Chapter news

Alabama Chapter hosts Resident Meeting

The Alabama Chapter of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) hosted a Resident Meeting March 4 at the Renaissance Birmingham Ross Bridge Golf Resort & Spa in Birmingham. Residents from the University of Alabama at Birmingham; Brookwood Baptist Health, Birmingham; and the University of South Alabama, Mobile, residency training programs attended the event. Sessions included the following:

• Tips & Trends: Cybersecurity & HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) Security for the Healthcare Provider
• Physician Contracts: What Should Be Included, Compensation and Benefits, and Negotiating Tips
• Financial Planning and Investment Management
• Impact of MACRA (Medicare Access and CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program]Reauthorization Act): Essential Strategies in Economic Reform
• Keys to Success for the Young Surgeon

 

Connecticut Chapter awards scholarships to graduating physicians

Honoring its longstanding commitment to medical education, the Connecticut Chapter of the ACS recently awarded scholarships to physicians graduating from medical schools in Connecticut. The awards were created to stimulate student interest in the surgical disciplines and to recognize outstanding achievement in these areas.

Awards were presented to Parwiz Abrahami, MD, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven; Dardan Beqiri, MD, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington; and Timothy Kirk O’Rourke, MD, Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, Quinnipiac University, Hamden. The Connecticut Chapter has presented awards to graduating physicians from Yale and the University of Connecticut for decades and was pleased to sponsor a new award for the inaugural graduating class of the Netter School of Medicine.

Connecticut Chapter: Dr. Abrahami

Connecticut Chapter: Dr. Beqiri

Connecticut Chapter: Dr. O’Rourke

Massachusetts Chapter sponsors resident attendance at ACS Leadership & Advocacy Summit

The Massachusetts Chapter of the College (MCACS) selected Erica Kane, MD, MPH, of Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, as the winner of its Sixth Annual Resident Essay Competition. She attended the 2017 Leadership & Advocacy Summit in Washington, DC, May 6–9.

To be considered for the competition, residents must be in an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-approved Massachusetts surgical residency training program and submit a brief essay on why they are interested in attending the summit. Dr. Kane expressed interest in advocacy work last December, when she attended the MCACS Annual Meeting in Boston. In her essay, she wrote, “This conference provides the unique circumstance to interact with individuals who are impassioned by the potential to metamorphose our health care system into one that protects and promotes its physicians and advocates for the best care of our patients.”

Dr. Kane also won the ACS-sponsored Summit Resident Travel Award that is given to a limited number of Resident members of the ACS who are interested in attending the Leadership & Advocacy Summit.

Southern California Chapter offers financial support to residents and young surgeons

In conjunction with the Southern California Chapter’s (SCCACS) Annual Scientific meeting, January 20–22 in Santa Barbara, CA, a Young Surgeons breakfast allowed attendees to discuss work/life balance with distinguished guest surgeons. The chapter supports its group of young surgeons by providing travel stipends of $1,200 each to three qualified surgeons to help defray meeting costs. The recipients of the 2017 Young Surgeon Travel Stipends are Jukes Namm, MD, Loma Linda University Medical Center; Karen Zaghiyan, MD, FACS, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles; and Nimmi Kapoor, MD, FACS, private practice, Woodland Hills.

Resident Research Awards were given to the top three papers submitted for the Annual Scientific Meeting. The 2017 winners were as follow:

• First place ($500)—Halley Vora, MD, Cedars-Sinai, for Lobular Carcinoma In Situ: A 15-Year Single Institution Review
• Second place ($300)—Anaar Siletz, MD, PhD, University of California (UC), Los Angeles, for Emergent Abdominal Surgery: How Do Laparoscopic and Open Approaches Compare?
• Third place ($200)—Sarath Sujatha-Bhaskar, MD, UC Irvine, for The Growing Utilization of Laparoscopy in Emergent Colonic Disease

In addition, the Region IX Trauma Competition took place December 3 at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. A one-day symposium featured the top clinical and basic science papers from California, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii. The abstracts were submitted as part of the chapter’s annual meeting submission process. The winners from the competition included the following:

• Clinical winner: Rachel Hogen MD, University of Southern California, for Adjunctive Use of Hepatic Angioembolization following Damage Control Laparotomy: A Propensity Score Matched Analysis
• Runner-up: Jason Brill, MD, Naval Medical Center, San Diego, for The Rate of Deep Vein Thrombosis Doubles in Trauma Patients with Hypercoagulable Thromboelastography
• Basic science winner: Theresa Chan, MD, UC San Diego, for CHRFAM7A Expression Implies a Uniquely Human Mechanism Gauging Human Inflammation
• Basic science runner-up: James Becker, MD, UC Davis, for Secondary Renal Injury in the Absence of Shock in a Murine Pulmonary Contusion Model of Trauma

The winning paper in the 2017 Physician-in-Training Cancer Research Paper Competition, also held in conjunction with the SCCACS Annual Scientific Meeting, was written by Nicholas Manguso, MD, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and titled Prognostic Factors Associated with Outcomes in Small Bowel Neuroendocrine Tumors. Dr. Manguso’s paper will be entered in the national Physician-in-Training Cancer Research Paper Competition in October at the annual Commission on Cancer meeting.

Greece Chapter hosts three-day surgical course

The Greece Chapter of the ACS, as a recipient of the Dr. Pon Fund Initiative Award, hosted a surgical course May 26–28 in Athens for physicians, residents, and senior medical students. The course provided skills training and theoretical education in a number of basic surgical procedures presented through case studies.

Several Fellows of the College participated in the educational program, including the following:

• David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS, Executive Director, ACS
• Patricia L. Turner, MD, FACS, Director, ACS Division of Member Services
• George Velmahos, MD, PhD, FACS, John F. Burke Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School, and division chief of trauma, emergency surgery and critical care, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
• Richard Schulick, MD, MBA, FACS, professor and chairman of surgery, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver
• Adil H. Haider, MD, MPH, FACS, Kessler Director, Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston
• Elias Degiannis, MD, PhD, FACS, professor of surgery, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
• Jamal J. Hoballah, MD, MBA, FACS, chairman of surgery, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Portugal Chapter presents bleeding control program

Medical students from the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa and the Portugal Chapter of the ACS organized a hands-on training course at the Eighth Annual International Medical Students (AIMS) Meeting, March 8–12 in Lisbon, Portugal. More than 800 individuals attended the AIMS Meeting. The focus of the course was on the ACS Stop the Bleed^®—Save a Life program. (See related stories, pages 11 and 17.) The ABCs of Bleeding, based on the comprehensive set of slides available at bleedingcontrol.org, were presented. The hands-on training sessions were structured in the following three stations:

• Station 1: Training on covering the wound and using a tourniquet
• Station 2: Arm dummies used for vascular simulation were adapted as “bleeding arms” for attendees to practice bleeding control
• Station 3: Simulated unexpected bleeding disaster

In addition, the Portugal Chapter hosted a session at the XXXVII National Congress of the Portuguese Society of Surgery, March 16–17 in Figueira da Foz. The National Congress is one of the most respected and largest events for surgeons in Portugal, with more than 550 surgeons and residents attending this year.

The Portugal Chapter session, which addressed The Uncertainty in Surgical Practice, has been gaining a relevant place in the national program. Specific topics covered included living with uncertainty, decision making based on imperfect data and limited knowledge, the ethical issues of getting a second opinion in the operating room, making decisions in the emergency department, and disruptive behavior due to uncertainty and burnout.