Surgeons, trainees, and others were honored with special awards presented during Clinical Congress 2024. They include:
Distinguished Service Award
Layton F. Rikkers, MD, FACS (Madison, WI)
ACS Lifetime Achievement Award
David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS (San Diego, CA)
Distinguished Lifetime Military Contribution Award
C. William Schwab, MD, FACS (Philadelphia, PA)
Mary Edwards Walker Inspiring Women in Surgery Award
Barbara J. Pettitt, MD, MHPE, FACS (Atlanta, GA)
Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award
Mary T. Hawn, MD, FACS (Stanford, CA)
ACS/Pfizer Surgical Volunteerism and Humanitarian Awards
- Academic Global Surgeon Award: Catherine J. Juillard, MD, MPH, FACS (Los Angeles, CA)
- Surgical Humanitarian Award: Jason P. Fader, MD, FACS, FCS(ECSA) (Gitega Province, Burundi)
- International Surgical Volunteerism Award: Alfred Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD, FACS (Jacksonville, FL)
- Domestic Surgical Volunteerism Award: Damon H. Clark, MD, FACS (Los Angeles, CA)
- Resident Surgical Volunteerism Award: Nichole Starr, MD, MPH (San Francisco, CA)
Advocate of the Year Award
Don J. Selzer, MD, FACS (Indianapolis, IN)
RAS-ACS Outstanding Mentor of the Year Award
Maie A. St. John, MD, PhD, FACS (Los Angeles, CA)
Jameson L. Chassin Award for Professionalism in General Surgery
Katharine E. Caldwell, MD, MSCI (St. Louis, MO)
Resident Award for Exemplary Teaching
Rick D. Vavolizza, MD, Charlottesville, VA
Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson II Promising Investigator Award
Jashodeep Datta, MD (Miami, FL)
Distinguished Philanthropist of the Year Award
Raghuvir Gelot, MD, FACS (Ahoskie, NC)
Impact Award
Christina Hewes Corson (Albuquerque, NM)
History of Surgery Poster Competition
- First Place: Savanna Banks and Isaiah Ware (Macon, GA): “Tragedy and Healing: The Impact of Two Black Surgeons in The Jim Crow South”
- Second Place: Alexandria Soto (Cambridge, MA): "Triage Tracks: A History of Wartime Hospital Trains"
CoC State Chair Outstanding Performance Award
- Diana Dickson-Witmer, MD, FACS (Rehoboth Beach, DE), Delaware State Chair
CoC Cancer Research Paper Competition
Clinical Research
- First place: Richard Sassun, MD (Rochester, MN): “A Valid Integration of Tumor Deposits in N Staging for Prognostication in Colon Cancer”
- Second place: Kelley Chan, MD, MS (Chicago, IL): “Commission on Cancer Hospital Accreditation Status is Associated with Increased Delivery of Guideline-Concordant Care for Highly Vulnerable Patients with Breast Cancer”
- Third place: Jamie Hillas, MD (Boston, MA): “Relationships Matter: Matching Barriers to Implementation Strategies for Commission on Cancer’s Breast Surgical Standards” and Amelia Wong, DO (Honolulu, HI), “An Innovative Pathway to Diagnose, Stage and Treat Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Addressing Treatment Delays in the Pacific Region”
Medical Student Program Poster Awards
Basic Science
- First place: Karla Rivera (Lillington, NC): “Gene Delivery During Ex Vivo Sub-normothermic and Hypothermic Machine Perfusion to Cardiac Allografts”
- Second place: Syim Salahuddin (Iowa City): “Loss of Muscarinic Receptors Innervation Following Lung Transplantation Drives Unregulated Cell Proliferation in Acute Airway Injury”
Clinical Science
- First place: Marissa Michael (New York, NY): “OCCULT: A Novel Scale for Occult Tethered Cord Syndrome: Proposition As A Diagnostic Tool And Utility In A Retrospective Cohort”
- Second place: Elaha Noori (Irvine, CA): “Comparing the Incidence of Osteoporotic Fractures in Patients Taking Preinjury Warfarin or Direct Oral Anticoagulants”
Education, Innovation, or Outcomes
- First place: Dontranika Horton (Charlottesville, NC): “Validation of The African Surgical Outcomes Study Surgical Risk Calculator at Kigali Teaching Hospital”
- Second place: Jarinya Wilasrusmee (Bangkok, Thailand): "The Plastic Covering Method For Self-gripping Mesh Placement In Laparoscopic Inguinal Hernia Repair"
Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum ePosters of Exceptional Merit
- Mardi Karin, MD, FACS (Stanford, CA): “Male Nipple-Sparing Mastectomy and Areolar-Sparing Mastectomy: A Multi-Institution Retrospective Review of Indications and Outcomes”
- Mark Broadwin, MD (Allentown, PA): “Visualization of ECM Microparticle Uptake in a Murine Model of Myocardial Infarction: Intramyocardial vs. Intravenous Routes”
- Hala Al Asadi, MD (New York, NY): “The Impact of Adjuvant Radiotherapy Administration on Disease Specific Survival in Patients Undergoing Surgery for Parathyroid Cancer”
- Bethany Slater, MD, FACS (“Hamilton, ON): “Large Language Model-Derived Clinical Practice Guideline for the Surgical Management of Appendicitis”
- Blake Westling, MD (Akron, OH): “Geriatric Surgery Verification Initiative Improves Goals of Care Discussions and Code Status Documentation”
- Escar Kusema, MD (Fargo, ND): “Impact of Rurality on Time to Therapy and Survival for Stage II-III Esophageal Adenocarcinoma”
- Rennie Qin, MBChB (Aukland, New Zealand): “Institutional Learning Curve Associated with Cytoreductive Surgery and Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy in Aotearoa New Zealand”
- Chenao Yu (Xi’an, China): “Safety and Efficacy of Magnetic-Anchoring Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS) versus Conventional Vats Pulmonary Resection: A Randomised, Open-Label, Non-Inferiority Clinical Trial”
- Kayla Wilson, MBA (Copperas Cove, TX): “Reviving Donation: Exploring the Temporal and Geographic Utilization of Normothermic Regional Perfusion (NRP) in Organ Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD)”
- Mohammadreza Zarisfi, MD (Pittsburgh, PA): “Modulating Platelet Function with Red Light Exposure: Implications for Thrombosis and Post-Trauma Recovery”
- Elsie Ross, MD, MSc (La Jolla, CA): “Unsupervised X-Ray Lower Extremity Angiogram Segmentation”
Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Excellence in Research Awards
Bariatric/Foregut
- Andrew Behrmann (Columbia, MO): “Intestinal Bypass as Metabolic Surgery Leads to More Significant Changes in Circulating Metabolites Compared with Restrictive Operation
Breast
- Summer Sami Yono, MD (Detroit, MI): “The Effect of Lymphatic Microsurgical Preventive Healing Approach in Reducing Breast Cancer-Related Arm Lymphedema”
Colon and Rectal Surgery
- Tiffany Cho (Lynchburg, VA): “Elucidating a Key Mechanism of Perioperative and Postoperative Ileus: Microvascular Serum Leak-Activation of the Cyclooxygenase Pathway Causing Colonic Dysmotility”
- Christopher J. Neylan, MD (Philadelphia, PA): “The Relationship between the Microbiome and Diverticular Disease: A Mendelian Randomization Study”
Endocrine
- William R. Lightle, MD, MPH (Waco, TX): “Understanding Reasons for Underutilization of Parathyroidectomy in the Treatment of Primary Hyperparathyroidism—A Mixed-Methods Approach”
Ethics
- Kathryn Wittrock (Iowa City): “Conflict of Interest Statements and Disclosure Policies for Surgical Societies”
General Surgery
- Nina M. Clark, MD, MS (Seattle, WA): “Should They Stay or Should They Go? Factors Associated with Transfer in Emergency General Surgery Patients Requiring Short Hospitalization”
- Yatee A. Dave, MD (Rochester, NY): “Think Twice: Deimplementation of Routine Laboratory Testing in Acute Care Surgery”
Global Surgery and Humanitarian Outreach
- Ami Hayashi (Los Angeles, CA): “Ranking Modifiable Predictor Variables for Traumatic Brain Injury Mortality in Cameroon Using the Super Learner Machine Learning Algorithm”
Health Services Research
- Ray Thomas Ramizer Jr., MD, MS (Chicago, IL): “Meeting the Challenge: Experiences of Vice Chairs of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Confronting Resistance to Change
- Daniel R. Stelzl, MD (Boston, MA): “Association Between Surgical Team Familiarity in the Operating Room and Patient Outcomes”
Hepatobiliary and Pancreas
- Tejeshwar Jain, MBBS (Birmingham, AL): “Targeting a Developmental Pathway Improves Chronic Pancreatitis in Murine Models”
- Diamantis I. Tsilimigras, MD, PhD (Columbus, OH): “Genomic Variation in Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma Based on Race/Ethnicity and Sex”
Orthopaedic Surgery
- David Richter (Kalamazoo, MI): “Autologous Blood Clots as a Therapeutic Vehicle for Treatment of Femoral Defects”
Neurosurgery
- Matthew Culkin (Philadelphia, PA): “Dose Dependent Tranexamic Acid (TXA) Blunting of Penumbral Leukocyte Mobilization and Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) Permeability Following Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): An In-Vivo Murine Study (Quick-Shot)”
Otolaryngology
- Muhammad Bilal Mirza, MD (Nashville, TN): “Distinct Populations of T-Cells Predict Immunotherapy Response in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Insights from a Clinical Trial”
Pediatric Surgery
- Nicole J. Kus, MD (Baltimore, MD): “Systemic Delivery of LNP mRNA in Utero Permits Editing in a Mouse Model of Spinal Muscular Atrophy”
Plastic/Maxillofacial Surgery
- Ipek Berberoglu, MD (Ann Arbor, MI): “Nerve Regeneration and Functional Recovery after Delayed Application of Regenerative Peripheral Nerve Interface”
Surgical Education
- Katherine I. Portelli, MD (New York, NY): “Sculpting Success: Optimizing Complication Self-Reporting Methodologies”
Surgical Oncology
- Ilan Layman, MD, MS (Providence, RI): “Impact of Pressure-Enabled Drug Delivery of Nelitolimod (SD-101) into the Liver with Systemic Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor for Treating Metastatic Uveal Melanoma with Liver Metastases”
Thoracic Surgery
- Scott Z. Mu, MD, MHS (Newark, NJ): “Propensity Score Analysis of Association between Frailty and Survival after Lung Resection in 42,929 Patients”
Transplantation & Tissue Engineering
- Teresa Belledent, MS (Nashville, TN): “Timely Referral of Deceased Organ Donors Increases Odds of Liver and Heart Transplantation”
Trauma/Burn/Critical Care
- Nathaniel McLauchlan, MD, SM (Philadelphia, PA): “Back to the Drawing Board: Exploring the Composition and Mechanical Properties of Traumatic Hemothorax”
- Ana M. Reyes, MD, MPH (Miami, FL): “Financial Toxicity and Firearm Injury: Exploring Financial Needs of Participants in a Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program”
Vascular Surgery
- Melina Recarey (Washington, DC): “Infrainguinal Bypass for Limb Salvage in Octogenarians with CLTI Has Comparable Mortality and Higher Morbidity Compared with Major Amputation, with Improved Likelihood of Home Discharge”
Acknowledgment of 2023 Award Winner (General Surgery)
- Jennifer Darby, MD (Chicago, IL): “The Impact of Exercise on the Systemic Response to Hemorrhagic Shock and Trauma in Mice Assessed by Plasma Proteomics”
