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The division of plastic surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine recently completed its first round of global health surgery rotations in cooperation with Moi University School of Medicine and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) in Eldoret, Kenya, as part of a new Global Plastic Surgery Program for residents that launched in 2022. 

There is an energy permeating through the Department of Surgery at the Indiana University School of Medicine, with a new leader bringing an ambitious vision for how to advance an already strong department. Karl Y. Bilimoria, MD, MS, FACS, became the eighth chair of the Department of Surgery in September, succeeding Gary Dunnington, M.D. 

Bilimoria, the Jay L. Grosfeld Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery, is not new to IU. He graduated from IU School of Medicine in 2003 and has become a nationally revered physician-scientist in health care quality, innovation and policy. 

 

When Indiana University School of Medicine general surgery resident, Jackson Baril, MD, was in college at University of Minnesota, he encountered a couple life-changing experiences: he registered for Be the Match to donate peripheral blood stem cells and decided to donate a kidney. 

The journey began innocently enough, as there was someone on campus to encourage people to sign up to donate bone marrow. And in a tissue engineering class, he learned about the need for organs. 

Researchers from the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering (ICRME), within the Department of Surgery at the Indiana University School of Medicine, took part in a brainstorming workshop on bioengineering and regenerative medicine, held virtually Sept. 20, with a research team from The University of Manchester in the United Kingdom to consider potential research collaborations. UoM hopes to forge closer ties with Indiana University (IU) as a strategic research partner. 

The Department of Surgery at the Indiana University School of Medicine offers optional research years to surgery residents that range from translational sciences to global health and surgical education after their second or third clinical year of residency. They dedicate a minimum of two years and have an opportunity to complete an advanced degree at no cost. During research years, residents gain valuable lab experience, opportunities to publish and present research, and the environment to build a professional network of colleagues to help navigate their future.

“I really hope they see this time as a growing period in which they can learn a lot in how to work with other people, how to critically evaluate scientific literature, and how to present their work to others,” said Troy A. Markel, MD, director of Pediatric Surgery Research and program director of General Surgery Resident Research for IU School of Medicine. “The resident becomes intimately associated with the body of literature of their interest,” he said, and they can “tease apart the scientific methodology. These lessons can help them when they return to their clinical duties as they learn to practice medicine based on the best evidence in the literature.”

Investigators from Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Surgery in Indianapolis and Purdue University School of Industrial Engineering at West Lafayette are researching how wearable sensors can facilitate modeling and assessment of surgery teamwork. They received a $1.6 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (1R01HS028026) to study how improving non-technical skills such as teamwork and communication can improve performance and outcomes.

Dimitrios Stefanidis, MD, PhD, vice chair of surgical education and professor of surgery at IU School of Medicine, will collaborate with Denny Yu, PhD, assistant professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University, who is an adjunct assistant professor of surgery at IU School of Medicine, as principal investigator.

Dimitrios Stefanidis, MD, PhD, FACS, FASMBS, vice chair of education in the Department of Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine, and Brianne Nickel, MA, C-TAGME, clinical education leader within the department, recently began their terms as presidents of national surgical education associations. Dr. Stefanidis is the current president of the Association for Surgical Education and Nickel is the president of the Association of Residency Administrators in Surgery. Both will serve as presidents for a one-year term. 

Four Department of Surgery physicians were recently inducted into the 2022 Class of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. This year's inductees included Jonathan A. Fridell, MD, professor of surgery at IU School of Medicine and chief of abdominal transplantation and surgical director of the IU Health pancreas transplant program, and general surgery residents Angela M. Chen, MD, Zainab Faiza, MD, and Elizabeth M. Huffman, MD. 

Research scientists and those with dependents were significantly impacted by COVID-19 – spending roughly 40 percent less time on studies. To address this challenge, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF), through the support of the John Templeton Foundation, administered a grant called the “Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists” to extend research capacity among medical scientists who had experienced a surge in family caregiving and other research disruptions during the pandemic. Al Hassanein, MD, assistant professor of Surgery in the Division of Plastic Surgery at the Indiana University School of Medicine was among the grant recipients to receive a FRCS grant, which was facilitated by the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute at Indiana University to support junior investigators.