Explore UAB

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.

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 those joining and leaving the Vascular Surgery Integrated Residency Program and the Vascular Surgery Fellowship.

According to a new study published by the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery’s Aurelio Galli, Ph.D., D.Sc., in PLOS Biology, a specific kind of bariatric surgery can reduce the rewarding effects of cocaine use by elevating bile acids in the gut.

Dr. James K. Kirklin

At the Sixth Scientific Meeting of the World Society for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery in Orlando, Florida, last month, the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery’s James K. Kirklin, M.D., was elected to serve as vice president of the Society until 2022, and then president until 2024.

Kirklin was also recently named president-elect of the American Heart Association’s Greater Southeast Affiliate board of directors for 2018-19.

Dr. Martin Heslin

The Division of Surgical Oncology’s Martin Heslin, M.D., executive vice-chair for the Department of Surgery and chief of medical staff for UAB Hospital, has been selected to become chair of the program committee for the Society of Surgical Oncology in 2020.

Dr. Chinwendu Onwubiko presents her research at the American College of Surgeons Quality and Safety Conference in July.

Pediatric Surgery Fellow Chinwendu Onwubiko, M.D., received an award for Best Trainee Abstract at the American College of Surgeons Quality and Safety Conference last month. Onwubiko presented her award-winning research on unplanned readmissions in pediatric general surgery, using the ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program’s pediatric database, at the meeting on Monday.

Dr. Renata Jaskula-Sztul

The Division of Surgical Oncology’s Renata Jaskula-Sztul, Ph.D., recently received the North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society Basic/Translational Science Investigator Award for her research project, “Novel Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) for Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor (PanNET) Targeted Therapy.”

Dr. Helen Krontiras
Dr. James Donahue

Helen Krontiras, M.D., and James M. Donahue, M.D., will be named to the Kirby I. Bland, M.D., Endowed Professorship in Surgery and the James H. Estes Family Endowed Chair for Lung Cancer Research in the Comprehensive Cancer Center, respectively, at the November 7 UAB School of Medicine Endowed Chairs and Professorships Reception at the Wallace Tumor Institute.

Ayanabha Chakraborti, Ph.D. — a senior research scientist in the laboratory of the UAB Department of Surgery’s Vice Chair of Basic Science Research James Bibb, Ph.D. — was recently awarded a $7,500 Yale/National Institute of Drug Addiction Neuroproteomics Center Pilot Research Project Grant for his research project, “Profiling the Nucleus Accumbens Proteome in an Experimental Model of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.”

Approximately 50 Department of Surgery faculty participated in the department's leadership and development retreat on Saturday, Aug. 4, at Willow Point in Alexander City, Alabama.