Mary T. Hawn, MD, MPH, FACS, the Emile Holman Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Department of Surgery at Stanford University in California, will receive the 2024 Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Awarded during tonight’s Convocation at Clinical Congress 2024 in San Francisco, California. The ceremony will be livestreamed and available on-demand soon after its conclusion.
The ACS gives this award to an individual who exemplifies the clinical, research, and educational achievements of a successful academic surgeon—qualities that Dr. Hawn has proven to have over nearly 4 decades as a researcher of minimally invasive foregut surgery and a driver for improving surgical quality.
“Having served on the Scientific Forum Committee for a decade and helping to choose previous recipients, receiving this award is an amazing honor, especially knowing the giants in surgery who have been given this recognition in the past are individuals I hold in such high esteem,” Dr. Hawn said.
She earned her medical degree at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There, she also was a general surgery intern, resident, and research fellow in colorectal tumor genetics, including a final year as administrative chief resident. She earned a master’s degree in public health from the same institution, then completed a minimally invasive surgical fellowship at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
Dr. Hawn returned to Ann Arbor for roles as an assistant professor in general surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School and a staff surgeon in the Veterans Affairs (VA) Ann Arbor Healthcare System in Michigan.
Following this, she spent 15 years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where she rose from assistant professor to chief of the Section of Gastrointestinal Surgery in the Department of Surgery. She was simultaneously a staff surgeon and director of the Center for Surgical, Medical Acute Care Research and Transitions Research Enhancement Award Program at the Birmingham VA Medical Center in Alabama.
While in Birmingham, she attained a certificate in healthcare quality and safety from the UAB School of Health Professions and became the vice chair for quality and clinical effectiveness in the Department of Surgery, before moving to her current position at Stanford in 2015.
Throughout her career, Dr. Hawn has connected her academic leadership with prolific scientific research. In her clinical area of expertise, minimally invasive foregut surgery, she has maintained long-running funding. Her output helped improve guidelines for noncardiac surgery in patients with coronary stents.
Dr. Hawn also has extensively researched surgical quality measurement and national policy affecting surgical populations, including a comprehensive evaluation of the Surgical Care Improvement Project implementation using national VA data. Her work has informed policy about national surgical quality measurement.
The current president of the Society of Surgical Chairs, Dr. Hawn also is a past chair of the American Board of Surgery and has held numerous leadership positions within surgical organizations. For the ACS, she has served as President of the Alabama Chapter and a member of the Board of Governors, as well as a past member of the Scientific Forum Committee.
The Scientific Forum Award is named after Owen H. Wangensteen, MD, PhD, FACS (1898–1981), who had a transformative influence on the field of surgery. A lifelong active ACS member, Dr. Wangensteen founded the Surgical Forum within the College and served as ACS president (1959–1960).
