This Grand Rounds offering is organized by the Academy's Subcommittee on Novel Teaching and Assessment Methods and Educational Resources, as part of the Division of Education's efforts to address challenges in surgery resident training during the COVID-19 pandemic and to harness opportunities to transform surgery training for the future. The Health Disparities and Surgical Education Grand Rounds is moderated by Dr. Mohsen M. Shabahang and panelists includes Dr. Adil Haider, Dr. Meera Kotagal, and Dr. Charles Moore. Our esteemed panel addresses the important topic of health disparities, especially through the lens of surgical education. Following brief presentations by the speakers, audience members are invited to participate actively in the discussion.
This Virtual Grand Rounds recording is designated for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™.
Adil Haider, MBBS, FACS, is the Dean of the Aga Khan University Medical College and Professor of Surgery and Community Health Sciences. He is an alumnus of AKU’s MBBS programme, and also holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is a practicing Trauma and Acute Care Surgeon and completed his residency training in General Surgery at New York Medical College / Westchester Medical Center, and fellowship training in Surgical Critical Care, and Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Dr. Haider is credited with uncovering racial disparities after traumatic injury and establishing the field of trauma disparities research. He is regarded as one of the foremost experts on healthcare inequities in the world, with projects focused on describing and mitigating unequal outcomes based on gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age and socioeconomic status. His other research focuses on long-term clinical and functional outcomes after trauma and emergency general surgery, optimal treatment of trauma/critically ill patients in resource-poor settings, and advanced analytic techniques for surgical health services research. He has formally mentored more than 100 research trainees, published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers and has served as Principal Investigator (PI) on extramural grants worth more than twenty million dollars. He also currently serves as the Deputy Editor of JAMA Surgery and is the immediate past-President of the Association for Academic Surgery.
Meera Kotagal, MD, FACS, is a pediatric surgeon at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC). She earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 2009, and completed her general surgery residency at the University of Washington in 2016. During her residency she completed a two-year research fellowship in surgical outcomes at the Surgical Outcomes Research Center in Seattle, as well as a Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. After her general surgery residency, Dr. Kotagal completed her pediatric surgery fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s and joined the faculty in 2018. Dr. Kotagal serves as the Director of Pediatric Surgery Global Health Program at CCHMC and the Associate Director for Trauma Services. She is a member of the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma as well as the Children’s Oncology Group’s Renal Tumor Committee. As the director of the Pediatric Surgery Global Health Program, Dr. Kotagal works in Uganda, in partnership with local Ugandan pediatric surgeons to help strengthen the health care system’s ability to care for children with surgical diseases.
Dr. Kotagal’s work at CCHMC – both through her global surgery focus as well as in her research – focuses on equity and access to care. Her goal is to ensure that all children have access to the care they need to live full, healthy lives — here in the US and abroad. Dr. Kotagal’s research focuses on understanding inequities in care and outcomes. Through her work, she seeks to standardize how we care for patients so that we provide the best possible care for ALL children. Her goal is to ensure that we close the gaps between people with and without resources — both in Cincinnati and worldwide — so that where children are born does not determine their health outcome.
Charles E. Moore, MD, received a Bachelor of Science from Union College and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He subsequently completed residency training in Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery and fellowship training in Craniomaxillofacial – Cranial Base, Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Michigan. Dr. Moore is a Professor at Emory University and the Chief of Service in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at Grady Health System. Dr. Moore has a longstanding and profound commitment to the training and development of learners from all backgrounds. His research focus has been in the investigation of factors involved in healthcare disparity with a particular focus on head and neck cancer incidence in medically underserved communities. He is the President and Founder of Health Education, Assessment and Leadership (HEAL), Inc. This organization began in 2004 as a travelling educational resource out of the back of his personal vehicle. It has grown into the Healing Community Center (HCC), one of Atlanta’s Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers. The HCC is focused on those who fall in the gap between public funded health care and the privately insured. This center incorporates all of the major Atlanta academic institutions and community organizations in an integrated fashion to provide service-learning experiences while also providing the necessary care to those in need.
Dr. Moore is the recipient of the AMA Foundation Pride in Profession, Excellence in Medicine Award, the 2011 Gold Foundation Award for Humanism in Medicine and he was named as a 2014 CNN Local Hero. Additionally, he was presented with the 2015 Jerome C. Goldstein, MD Public Service Award from National Academy of Otolaryngology. Dr. Moore is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and he received the Thomas Jefferson Award from Emory University for distinguished leadership and service to the Emory and Atlanta community. He also received the 2019 NMF Excellence In Medical Education Award and the 2020 Benjamin Rush Award for Citizenship and Community Service from the AMA.
Mohsen Shabahang, MD, PhD, FACS, is the chair of the Geisinger Surgery Institute, Danville, PA, and the director of general surgery residency. Dr. Shabahang joined Geisinger in July 2010 as the director of the department of general surgery and director of the general surgery residency program at Geisinger Medical Center, Danville.
Welcome remarks will be given by Ajit K. Sachdeva, MD, FACS, FRCSC, FSACME, MAMSE, Director of the ACS Division of Education and Co-Chair, Steering Committee of the ACS Academy of Master Surgeon Educators.
The ACS Academy of Master Surgeon Educators Grand Rounds Series was developed as an outcome of discussions of the ACS Academy of Master Surgeon Educators. If you have questions about the series, please contact ACSAcademy@facs.org.